


Why Are You Here?

by cosmicwriter



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Slow Burn, not a kid!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-01-30 12:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12653532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicwriter/pseuds/cosmicwriter
Summary: It's one thing to not trust Hinata alone with a volleyball in a house with windows, but it's another thing entirely to hire his volleyball rival to watch him for the night! Will he survive it?(The Ushijima-is-a-part-time-babysitter-but-everything-else-is-exactly-the-same au that no one asked for!!!)





	1. Chapter One

  The sound of high heels click-clacking on the hard wood floor was headed towards Hinata's bedroom door, and was followed by two hard knocks.

  "Shoyo? I'm coming in," Hinata's mother said, pushing open the door and entering her son's room.

  Hinata, sprawled across his bed, glanced up from his phone. "Huh?"

  "I have a work event tonight, so I want you to put on some more suitable clothing," she said, gesturing to Hinata's old gym shorts and over sized t-shirt, "then I want you to come out into the living room to greet the babysitter when he gets here."

  Hinata scrambled up immediately. "What? Babysitter? I'm sixteen! That's old enough to look after Natsu for a few hours by myself!"

  She huffed. "The babysitter isn't for Natsu. He's for you. Or do I need to remind you about the volleyball shaped hole you put in the window the last time I left you alone?"

  Hinata turned bright red. "I wouldn't- I won't- I don't need a-,"

  "Don't argue with me Shoyo; start getting changed. He's going to be here soon," she said, with an air of finality as she closed the door behind her.

  As he changed into jeans and a slightly better fitting tee shirt, Hinata grumbled about having a babysitter at sixteen. He snatched his phone up off the bed and stomped into the living room. Natsu was already sitting criss cross apple sauce in front of the living room table, coloring, while their mother was doing something in the kitchen.

  "Whacha colorin' Natsu?" he asked, switching into Big Brother Mode and dropping down to sit on the floor next to her.

  "Princess Atemi!" Hinata leaned over and inspected the princess coloring page that had been completely filled in with red crayon.

  "She looks very pretty."

  She beamed. "Thanks!"

  Hinata turned back to his phone and texted Kageyama.

  **To Kageyama:**

  _my mom hired a babysitter??? for me? :0 >:(_

  Minutes ticked by as Hinata scrolled through Twitter, and Natsu colored beside him. There was a heavy knock at the door; Hinata jumped.

  "Mom, he's here!" Hinata yelled. She rushed out of the kitchen and hurriedly opened the door to greet the figure behind it.

  “Hello,” she said bowing. Hinata strained his neck to see what he looked like, but she was blocking the view.

  “Thank you so much for babysitting tonight, especially since I called you so last minute.”

  “Of course,” he said. The guy's voice sounded low...and kind of familiar?

  His mother moved out of the way to let him in but Hinata still couldn't see him. He was still half hidden behind the wall that connected the living room to the foyer. It sounded like he was taking off his shoes.

  “Pardon the intrusion,” he said. Hinata's brow furrowed.

  That voice...it _really_ sounded like...but there was no way-. They both came into the living room and Hinata finally saw him properly.

  He inhaled sharply, freezing in place. _Japan? Their babysitter was Japan?_

  Ushijima's eyes flitted across the room and landed on Hinata and Natsu. He seemed unfazed, greeting them with a normal bow. Natsu stood up, also unfazed, and Hinata had to scramble to his feet to bow with her.

  “Alright. Well, dinner is already in the donabe, my number is one on the fridge-here, I'll show you where, and some basic rules...," she continued to talk as they headed to the kitchen and Natsu went back to coloring, but Hinata couldn't focus on anything other than Ushijima.

  Ushijima. Ushijima inside of his house. Ushijima as his _babysitter_. Why? Why did it have to be him? A flood of images of how the rest of their night was going to go flashed through Hinata's head, all of them a million times worse than one thousand diving receives. Ushijima couldn't murder him in revenge with Natsu there, right? His mom had taught her how to call 119, didn't she? Ushijima and his mom walked back out of the kitchen.

  “Alright then, I think that's pretty much everything! I'll probably be home around ten, is that okay?”

  Ushijima nodded. Hinata's mom hurried to the table and leaned down to give Natsu (who was starting at Ushijima in wonder) a kiss on the cheek, then blew Hinata a kiss and was out the door with one last 'You two be good!'.

  And then it was just the three of them. For a split second, it seemed like they were all observing each other. In their small living room, Ushijima looked even bigger than he did on the court, yet surprisingly less scary. His broad shoulders and impressive height made him look like a fairytale prince from Natsu's coloring book. Or an old-timey lumberjack. Maybe both. Ushijima was dressed casually in faded jeans and a long sleeved, red flannel shirt, with a black backpack slung across both shoulders. Still, as Hinata stared at Ushijima in shock, his heart pounded away. Just because he looked like a normal, (though huge) person, that didn't mean he didn't have a lumberjack ax in his backpack for murder-y purposes.

  Ushijima broke the silence first. “Good evening Hinata family. I am Ushijima Wakatoshi and I will be your babysitter for the evening.”

   Hinata blinked. He didn't sound mad. Hinata said nothing as he watched Ushijima slip his backpack off his shoulders and set it against the wall.

  Natsu was still staring. “Why are you too much tall? Did you drink too much milk as a kid?”

  He frowned, looking a little taken aback. Walking over and kneeling down to her level, he ignored her question and asked, “What activities would you like to do tonight?”

  “Act-tivities? Uhmm... I wanna watch cartoons in my room!” she said.

  “Hinata-san said you were allowed to watch 30 minutes of cartoons tonight, are you sure it's wise to use all that time immediately? Timing is the key to success,” he said, with a stone cold face.

  Hinata snapped out of his trance and clapped his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle his laughter. Was he for real?

  She tilted her head. “Yes?”

  “Okay then.” Natsu gave him another confused look and ran off to her room; Ushijima immediately pulled out his phone to set a timer for thirty minutes.

  “H-hey! Wait a second! Why didn't you ask what I wanted to do?”

  Ushijima turned his head; his intense olive green eyes freezing Hinata in his place again. _Nevermind, he's waaay scarier up close_ , Hinata thought to himself.

  “Since you are failing English, Hinata-san has requested that you do your homework with my assistance. Please go get it.”

  Hinata's mouth popped open again. Ushijima? Help him? With homework? In real life? Dazed, he mumbled something back and hesitantly got up. Going into his room, Hinata rifled through his book bag and dug out his English homework and a pencil. Of all the possible babysitters in Japan, why did it have to _be_ Japan? No, actually, why did the windows in their house have to be made with what was apparently the weakest glass in the world?

  When he returned to the living room, Ushijima was sitting in Natsu's spot, looking bored on his phone. Hinata felt like he wandered into a parallel world. Why the hell was Ushijima sitting in _his_ living room, making _his_ coffee table look like doll furniture? He shuffled over to Ushijima and sat down, carefully, like Ushijima was going to attack him.

  “Okay, you may begin. Ask me to clarify anything you don't understand.”

  “Er...sure?”

  Facing forward, he shuffled around in his spot a little; it was suddenly really itchy. He tried reading the first few sentences, then put the paper back down on the table and smoothed it out, figuring that it wasn't any good if it was wrinkled. He shifted around again, maybe it would be less itchy if all his weight was on his right side? After all, he was right handed...

  _I wonder why Japan looks and talks so stiff? Maybe he's nervous too?_ , Hinata thought to himself.

  After tapping his pencil on the table for a few minutes while he tried to read the material, he managed to put his pencil to the paper. A few minutes later, Hinata thought he was doing pretty well, but Ushijima broke his concentration, sighing deeply.

  “Why aren’t you doing your work?”

  “Uwah? I-I'm doing it!” he said, straightening up.

  “Drawing volleyballs on your homework is not 'doing it'.”

  “Those are meat buns! And...uhm...I was gonna do it eventually...I was just...warming up a little?” Ushijima narrowed his eyes; Hinata really, really wanted someone to hide behind. Even Natsu would work.

  “You don't warm up before doing homework. You just do it.” Hinata pouted.

  “But I don’t understand this…,”

  “Oh.” Ushijima took the paper out of his hand, careful not to bend it. “What are you not understanding? The task is to read the passage and answer questions about it.”

  “I know that! I…I understand what most of the words mean by themselves, but together…they get all jumbly.”

  “I see. Read the passage aloud then. It will help you understand it.”

  Hinata looked at him blankly but took the paper back from him anyways. There was no way. He was not going to read in front of Ushijima from Shiratorizawa high school! No fricking way!

  Ushijima narrowed his eyes again, waiting. Hinata was opening his mouth. It was happening.

  “Onceuponatime…” he muttered.

  “Enunciate your words.”

  “Once...upon...a...time...,”

  “Louder,”

  “ONCE UPON A TIME,” Hinata yelled, making Ushijima flinch.

  The paper was snatched from his hands. “No. Nevermind. I’ll read it. You listen instead.”

  Hinata settled back up against the couch, beaming. He didn’t expect to get out of that so easily. Ushijima cleared his throat and began reading. “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away...,”

  In Hinata's defense, he really did try to pay attention to the story. But it wasn't his fault that Ushijima's voice was deep and smooth and it made Hinata sleepy. By the time Ushijima was done reading, Hinata wasn't sure if the story was about a girl named Cinderella, who was sad because she couldn't go to the ball, or a girl who was sad because she couldn't play volleyball in such a puffy dress. It was probably that first one, though.

  “Would you like me to read you the questions too?”

  “Yeah!”

  When he was done, there were no more ways to procrastinate his homework, so he struggled through a few questions, his eyes drifting to the volleyball net outside every few minutes. Halfway through, Hinata started rocking back and forth and bouncing up and down at the same time. Ushijima sighed, suddenly putting his oversized hand on Hinata's small shoulder and pushing him down.

  “Eck!”

  “Where's all the concentration you had during our match?”

  Hinata froze. The match? Oh-no, was this when all the revenge-murder stuff happened? While Natsu was obliviously watching cartoons in the other room? Hinata nervously looked up at Ushijima, but all he saw was an amused smirk on his face.

  “I-uh, I can only focus like that on volleyball. And meat buns.”

  “Meat buns?”

  “Yeah! Weeell, Tamago Kake Gohan is actually my favorite food, but meat buns are the coolest cause if I work on it, I can fit a whole one inside of my mouth!” Ushijima looked irritated for a second, then his face went blank again.

  “Okay then. If you get an A on your English homework, I'll buy you a meat bun next time.”

  Hinata tilted his head. What? Why would Ushijima buy Hinata something with his own money? And how would he even know what grade Hinata got, anyways? Still...he seemed dead serious, so Hinata, with the thought of a free meat bun giving him new energy, went back to work. By the time he was finishing the last question, the thirty minute alarm went on off. Ushijima stood up to go get Natsu and Hinata put his homework away. Then, he headed back to the couch with his phone to text Kageyama some more.

  **To Kageyama:**

  _you'll never guess who my babysitter is!!!_

  Kageyama responded a few minutes later.

  **From Kageyama:**

  _I can't believe you still need a babysitter. Though I probably should have assumed._

  Hinata decided to ignore that last remark, but only because there were more important things at hand.

  **To Kageyama:**

  _it's Japan! HE'S HERE IN MY HOUSE!!!_

  Natsu ran out of her room and Ushijima followed her out; she went back to coloring at the table and he disappeared in the kitchen.

  **From Kageyama:**

_Seriously?? That's so weird. What's he like in person?_

  **To Kageyama:**

  _he's actually kinda nice! and scary! he helped me with my homework!!!_

  When Ushijima came back into the living room, Natsu looked at him, like she wanted to say something. Instead she got this look on her face like a light bulb went off above her head. Immediately abandoning her coloring book, she ran over to him. She bounced up and down on her tip toes, chanting “Piggy back ride, piggy back ride!”. Ushijima was stunned into being still for a second.

  “Uhoooh, Natsu, don't-,”

  To Hinata's surprise, Ushijima slowly knelt down. Natsu squealed in delight and ran around to climb on his back. Hinata's mouth dropped open for the umpteenth time that night. Then, Ushijima stood up again, even slower than he had knelt down even though that wasn't even possible, and he lumbered back into the kitchen. The floor boards creaked under his weight. Hinata watched in confusion and fascination as Ushijima milled around their house a few times. Natsu was kicking her feet up and hitting his sides with her heels while yelling something in English that sounded like 'musssh, musssh!', but Ushijima said nothing in response as he continued walking in and out of rooms like he was an automated Sim. Hinata was starting to think Kageyama threw a volleyball too hard at his face, and in reality, he was actually face down on the gym floor. The scene in front of him just...couldn't be real life. When he knelt down again, Natsu slid off his back, ran back into the living room, and was coloring again within seconds. Ushijima disappeared into the kitchen again. As for Hinata, well, he just sat there, stunned. Instinctively, he reached for his phone to tell Kageyama, but realized that Kageyama probably wouldn't believe him. Would anyone? Maybe Hinata didn't even believe Hinata either. After all, this was _Japan_ he was talking about.

  Before Hinata could think about it any more, Ushijima re-emerged from the kitchen.

  "Our next activity should be a game," he stated, towering over the both of them.

  "What kind of game?" Natsu asked, but it was clear she was already in.

  He thought for a moment. "The best game for a new group of people to play is a game that combines trust exercises with team work building exercises. What games like that do you have?"

  Hinata shifted. "Hhhuhhhm,...we have Gomoku, and uh, Menko cards,” when he said that, a mysterious blush appeared on Ushijima's face, “ and an American game called "Twister". I've never played that one before though, so I don't know how uhm, team work-y it is."

  “There's only one way to find out. Let's play Twister.”

  ♥  ♥  ♥

  Hinata sent Natsu to go dig Twister out of her jam packed closet, a decision he immediately regretted, because it left him alone with Ushijima. Hinata stared at him, trying to be discreet but failing. He looked even _more_ intimidating up close. His features looked like they were carved out of marble, but like, _a lot_ of marble. It probably took all the marble in Greece to make just his shoulders. Or his jaw-line, which looked sharp enough to kill an ace. Ushijima didn't look at him; he didn't say anything either. A thought occurred to Hinata.

  "Do you even have Menko cards?"

  Ushijima's mysterious blush reappeared."Yes."

  "Really? That's so cool! How many do you have? Are you really good? What kind do you have?"

  Ushijima narrowed his eyes, but he was looking down at the floor instead of Hinata. Before he could respond, Natsu rushed back in with her arms full of Twister. Hinata and Natsu took out the mat and spread it out while Ushijima read the instructions. “Twister is a physical game of skill...,”.

  “...The first person to fall over or let their elbows or knees touch the ground losses,” he finished, folding the instructions back up.

  “I wanna be the one who spins the spinner!” Natsu cheered, bounding over to the box and snatching the spinner out before anyone even had time to respond.

  Ushijima nodded, then looked at the mat intensely, like it was a chess board. “Let's begin,” he said, after a few seconds.

  Ushijima and Hinata stood side by side at the end of the mat; Ushijima with his eyebrows knitted in concentration and Hinata wondering what he could possibly be seeing. All he could see the were the circles. They were colorful. And they were circles. That was the end of interesting things about them. Natsu spun the spinner and called out in her sing-song voice, “Right foot, green!”. They both shuffled onto the mat so that one foot was on a green circle; they ended up facing each other. Hinata froze in place as soon as he got to the circle, thinking, ' _maybe standing so close to Ushijima was a bad idea_.'.

  “Left hand, blue!”

  Hinata jumped, then eyed the mat nervously, as the blue dots were two rows over. He went to turn around but-

  “Heyyy! No turning Sho! You gotta get to the dot in the position you started in!”

  “Mhmm,” Hinata sighed. Ushijima looked at him expectantly. Why was he doing that? It was not making him feel less nervous and-oh. He couldn't move until Hinata did, since Hinata was in front of him. Whoops. Reluctantly, he crouched down and carefully extended his left hand behind him to the blue circle, which left him belly up, like he was a wobbly little kid table. Next, Ushijima mirrored him, except his hand was placed on the circle right above Hinata's, with his back pointed towards the ceiling. If Hinata thought that playing against Ushijima on a volleyball court was intimidating, then having him hovering right above him was a whole different level. They were way too close to each other; though they weren't actually touching each other, Ushijima was basically on top of him and tangled up in him. Ushijima's face was inches from his own, and he was staring at Hinata. Because he was a jerk. Or because there was no where else to look. No, it was definitely that first thing. Wow, his eyes were really, really green. His heart started beating hard-probably because he didn't want to lose?

  The _whosh whosh whosh_ of the spinner went off again and Natsu called out “Right hand, yellow!”.

  “Nngh,” Hinata whined, sliding his right hand over to the upper most yellow circle. His left arm and right leg were already burning and his thudding heart was not helping the situation. Ushijima moved effortlessly though, as he took the circle below his, putting his head near the side of Hinata's neck.

  Hinata bit his lip. Ushijima's breath on his neck made him feel even more like he was going to lose which is why his heart started to pound harder and his face was starting to get too hot. That had to be some kind of cheating, right? Hinata thought telling Ushijima to stop breathing was a little weird though, so instead he said, “Natsu, hurry up and spin the thingy again!”

  “Okay!” _Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh_ , “Left hand, red!”

  Hinata turned his head to look for the red circles.“Nooo! Not left hand red! That's not even-I'm not glitter putty!” he wailed, nervously eying the line of red circles, which was yet another row over. Ushijima cracked a small smile. Suddenly the circles were the last thing on his mind because- wait! _What was that? Did he really just?_

  It occurred to Hinata that he'd never seen Ushijima smile before.

  “You aren't glitter putty. I think you're just short.” Natsu said, also smiling.

  Hinata gritted his teeth. Oh right, he was suppose to be moving. Begrudgingly, he started to slide his hand in that direction. On the up side, this lowered his body farther from Ushijima and his heart started to give him a tiny break. On the other hand, his right leg was shaking hard from the prolonged holding-up-of-Hinata's-whole-body it was doing, and twisting his torso to desperately grasp for the red circle was not helping.

  “Whaaha,” Hinata cried suddenly, as his sweaty palm slipped on the mat and his legs slid out from under him. His reflexes took over and he threw his arm around Ushijima's neck to keep from falling. Unfortunately, Ushijima wasn't a balanced as he looked, because the sudden weight immediately collapsed him on top of Hinata.

  It took Hinata a second to register what had just happened. The very first thing that Hinata noticed was that he was no longer breathing. The second thing he noticed was that he was breathing, but probably not for long, as he was being suffocated by a body pillow filled with bricks, that smelled pleasantly like farm land. Oh, wait. That was Ushijima.

  _Oh! Wait! That was Ushijima!_

  He was flailing immediately (although he couldn't move much), he yelled something like “hey!” thought it came out a lot more like “mmph!”. Ushijima got off of him quickly. He also seemed confused or...shocked? Hinata couldn't read his face.

  “I-I'm sorry!” Hinata spluttered when he got his breath back.

  “It's fine.”

  Natsu, shocked into silence for only a second, thought the whole thing was just hysterical. The spinner fell out of her hands as she doubled over with laughter.

  “Don't laugh! I almost died!” Hinata wheezed at her. He was secretly glad for the distraction though, so he didn't have to really think about what just happened.

  “Oh. I'm sorry.” Ushijima said solemnly. He stood up and started to smooth out the mat.

  “Uhm...oh. Actually...I didn't mean-,” Hinata said, jumping off the mat so he wasn't in the way.

  “Losing and dying aren't the same Shou,” Natsu said through her laughter.

  “Hey,-he didn't-that was definitely a tie!”

  “Haha. No way! Anyways, we should play again! Ushijima won so fast! I wanna play again!”

  Ushijima looked at Hinata. “If you want to.”

  Uggh. Two against one. “Sure...but hey, Natsu! Don't be selfish! Let Ushijima run the spinner this time!”

  ♥  ♥  ♥

  20 rounds on Twister later and Hinata still hadn't won a single time. Ushijima was too big for any color/body part combination to be a struggle for him, and Natsu was surprisingly flexible. Well that, and also Ushijima always found a discreet, convincing way to let her win after putting up a 'good fight'. Thankfully, a loud hissing sound came from the donabe in the kitchen and Ushijima untangled himself from Hinata, who was about to lose his 21st round. While he took care of that, Hinata and Natsu put Twister away. Or rather they tried to; Hinata's arms were permanently out of order and Natsu just wanted to spin the spinner more. Still, eventually it got put away and they all settled at the kitchen table with a bowl in front of them. Hinata laughed to himself as he watched Ushijima ladle hot pot into each of their bowls; it was too late in the year for hot pot but it was the best thing his mom knew how to make and therefore the only thing they were allowed to have for dinner when there were guests.

  “Itadakimasu,” they said in unison.

  Cautiously, Hinata raised a spoon to his lips, waiting for Ushijima to eat some first to make sure it wasn't poisoned. Ushijima rose an eyebrow at Hinata, who was watching him not-so-discreetly, but ate a spoonful anyways. A few seconds after swallowing, he seemed fine. Still...maybe he just poisoned Hinata's? Actually, that seemed kinda unlikely to Hinata, since he seemed to get along with Natsu and Natsu would probably be really scared if Hinata collapsed right in front of her...it was probably safe to eat then. He took a hesitant sip. It didn't taste like poison. It tasted good. Natsu and Ushijima ate quietly, blowing on their spoonfuls of hot pot before taking a bite, but Hinata charged ahead full force, alternating between shoveling down spoonfuls and gasping as hot broth splashed the roof of his mouth.

  “Don't do that, Hinata,” Ushijima said, sounding concerned.

  “Whym nmot?” he asked, mouth full.

  “You're going to burn your tongue.”

  Natsu giggled and decidedly blew on her spoonful.

  “Don't care! 'S too good to shtop!”

  Ushijima raised an eyebrow but shrugged. “Hinata-san is a good cook. I wouldn't have put coconut milk in hot pot, but it's good.”

  Hinata nodded, but paused when he thought about what Ushijima said. “Eh? You cook too?”

  “Yeah.” Ushijima shrugged again, before taking another sip.

  Suddenly overcome with curiosity, and the bizarre mental image of Ushijima in an apron, Hinata forgot about his food. “You really, really know how to cook? But why?”

  Ushijima stared at him, making him regret saying anything. “When plants are not properly nourished with correct nutrients like water and sun light, they wither and die. Humans are no different.”

  They were both silent for a second. “Uoohoh. Okay,” Hinata said, quickly going back to eating.

  The whole table ate in silence for a few minutes after that, a heaviness hanging in the air. Hinata mulled over 'withering and dying' as he chewed. That was a very serious reason for doing something, it kind of made Hinata want to laugh. Why was that surprising to him? If it was Ushijima, he probably learned to be the best cook in the world just because.

  “Can you teach me how to cook sometime? I can't cook at all, even a little, and I don't wanna wither and die before nationals so...,”

  Hinata said absentmindedly, with Natsu giggling in agreement. Ushijima looked startled. Then, after a second or two, his face twisted into a sort of confused, yet broad smile that made his olive colored eyes light up like traffic lights. Hinata almost dropped his spoon. Ushijima could smile? Ushijima could smile like _that_? At him?

  Another few seconds passed. “Yeah. I guess I could.”

  Hinata made some noise in agreement and quickly went back to eating. Although, for some reason, he wasn't really tasting the food anymore.

  After dinner, Ushijima turned down Hinata's offer to help clean up and sent both of them to go brush their teeth and put on pajamas. Hinata laughed to himself as he got ready for bed; it was strange to hear someone so scary say 'pajamas'. By the time Hinata walked back out into the hallway he could hear Ushijima reading Natsu one of her favorite books in her room. Once he was back in the living room, he grabbed his phone and sent another text to Kageyama.

  **To Kageyama:**

  _he's really good with kids!!! 0.0_

  Hinata played The Legendary Blacksmith on his phone until heavy footsteps wandered out and stopped in front of him.

  “It is time for you to go to bed as well, Hinata.” Ushijima said, looming over him.

  Hinata jumped up. “Ha? I-It's 8:30!”

  He shrugged.“Hinata-san said that 8:30 was the time for bed.”

  “For Natsu? I'm sixteen, I can stay up later! Much later!”

  Ushijima gazed down at him, like he was trying to mind-control him into complying without resistance. “She didn't specify which child.”

  Hinata plopped back down on the couch and went back to playing his game. “Well I'm not going to bed, 8:30 is a silly time to go to sleep!”

  Ushijima said nothing, but he took a step closer. Hinata refused to look up. With no warning, Ushijima stepped to Hinata's right, threw his left arm under Hinata's knees and his right arm behind Hinata's back, then lifted him into the air.

  “Gyaah!” Hinata wailed as his phone slipped out of his hand and he was pulled up.

  Suddenly, Hinata was pressed close to Ushijima's chest, princess-style, and was staring up at him in horror.

  “My phone! I haven't finished designing my sword yet! Also, what the hell?” Ushijima was carrying him towards his room.

  “You can finish tomorrow.”

  “It might not save my place!” he said, trying to twist out of Ushijima's hold.

  “Then you will have to start over tomorrow,” Ushijima stated, tightening his grasp on Hinata, even though it was already strong. And warm. And _weird_.

  “You're so mean! And this is weird!”

  He seemed to take offense to that. “I'm only following instructions.”

  They were stopped in front of Hinata's bedroom door as Ushijima struggled to push it open with his hands full. Hinata started to squirm in Ushijima's grasp. “I'm sixteen! I don't need to-”

  “If you continue to make so much noise, you will wake your sister.”

  Hinata stilled for a second and Ushijima pushed the door open. “You managed to get Natsu to sleep so early? That's...awesome.”

  Ushijima nodded slightly; it looked like he was trying not to smile. Hinata forgot he was suppose to be struggling. As Ushijima leaned down to pull back the covers, Hinata, due to Ushijima's hands being full, was shuffled into a strained position. When he leaned over, Hinata's face got buried in the crook of Ushijima's neck, and there were some other small changes to his position, but Hinata was mostly focused on that first thing. Ushijima was very warm. And he really did smell like hay that had been sitting in the sun for a long time.

  Hinata was gently lowered onto his bed and his bed covers were over him in a second, as if to prevent him from escaping. Ushijima hovered over him and used the edges of his fingers to tuck him in, as if that was a completely normal thing to do for your _volleyball rival_. All the attention made Hinata's cheeks turn red.

  And it was about to get even worse. Way worse.

  “Would you like a bed time story?”

  Hinata's mouth fell open. What was _wrong_ with him?

  “I'm-I'm not an elementary school kid! I'm sixteen! Six-teen!”

  He put hands up defensively. “Whatever you prefer.”

  Hinata huffed, but as Ushijima turned to leave, Hinata glanced out his large bedroom window. It was barely dark out; it would be hours before Hinata would feel even a little sleepy.

  “Wait! I change my mind!”

  Ushijima turned back around. “Okay. Which one do you want? Do you have any books you'd like me to read from?”

  “Uhm. I have mostly manga, and one chapter book on volleyball basics. And a math book. I think.”

  He gave Hinata an amused huff.

  “I want you to make a story up!”

  His smirk fell. “I don't-”

  “Then I guess I can't go to sleep then!” Hinata said, sitting straight up.

  That was a lie. He mostly wanted to know what kind of story Ushijima would make up.

  Ushijima stared at him hard, but Hinata stared right back. Eventually, Ushijima sighed and walked over to Hinata's bed.

  “Lie back down.”

  Hinata lied back down. Ushijima sat down on the floor, taking a deep breath. And then another. Then he closed his eyes for a second, and slowly began. “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a princess with a dead father. Her new mom was mean, and her stepsisters were also mean. And not good at volleyball.”

  Hinata snorted. “Was that a joke?”

  “Be silent, I'm telling a story,” Ushijima ordered, but it was hard to take him seriously with his face twisted in another small smile.

  “The sisters and the step-mother made the princess work very hard-,”

  Hinata sat up. “You're just re-telling me the Cinderella story from my homework!”

  “I am telling you an original story I made up; now lie down and close your eyes.”

  Hinata only crossed his arms, so Ushijima put his large palm on the whole of Hinata's face and gently pushed him down. “Whaaaha,” he whined, hitting his pillow with a _thud_. Even when he was being gentle, he was too strong. Hinata let out a sigh and let his eyes, close even though he wasn't tired. It was...kinda nice to just relax and listen to Ushijima's voice. It was deep, but smooth like a calm ocean.

  As Ushijima continued to tell “his” story, his voice slowly got quieter as he seemed more convinced that Hinata was asleep. Which Hinata found hilarious, because who could fall asleep at 8:30? After a while Ushijima stopped completely and Hinata heard him stand up. He tensed. _Was he going to be murdered now? Was this the opportunity Ushijima had been waiting for the whole time?_ Hinata tried to lie as still as possible as he waited for Ushijima to leave or try to kill him, but instead, he felt a feather light touch on the top of his head. He stopped breathing all together in an attempt to keep quiet. Calloused fingers brushed through strands of his hair just barely, so gently that Hinata wasn't sure it was even happening. Ushijima let all of his fingers slip through Hinata's hair, and then he ruffled it, just slightly. Hinata was about to pass out when he heard the floor creak; Ushijima had stopped and heavy footsteps retreated through his bedroom door.

  What the hell? Hinata let go of his breath as soon as the door was shut. He sat straight up, gasping, and tugged his hand through his hair. Did that just happen? Did Hinata misunderstand something? No...what else could that have been? Hinata stared at the door, trying to think things through.

  Yeah, it was nice, but weird because it was Ushijima, and because it was so gentle from someone so scary, but also it was _really_ nice. But confusing? Why would he do that? Actually, more importantly, what exactly did he do? And why? Hinata flopped back down onto his bed, pulling his fingers through his hair again and again, wondering when the tingling in his scalp would go away enough so that he could sleep.


	2. Chapter Two

   Almost a week after Ushijima babysat Hinata and Natsu, it was almost like it didn't happen. They went to different schools, they had no practice matches together, and no reason to talk to each other. Still, through out the week, Hinata's mind would drift to playing Twister with Ushijima, eating hot pot while talking about cooking and his ocean-y voice. He forced himself to skip over the memory of having his hair ruffled; it made his skin feel too hot for some reason. 

   That Sunday morning, his mom rushed around the house, whipping up rice and natto, then disappearing into her room only to emerge minutes later. 

   “Shoyo, wake your sister up, tell her to get dressed!” she shouted from the kitchen.

   “Ehhm. Sure,” mumbled a sleepy Hinata as he went to wake up one forever-never-a morning-person Natsu. It was like throwing sticks at a polar bear (that was the English expression, right?) but eventually he managed to get her to wake up. He wandered back into the kitchen. “What's up, Mom?”

   She huffed. “My boss just called, apparently I'm suppose to be at a day long convention in Tokyo! He didn't even bother to tell me until just now! Anyways, hurry up and go get dressed, I hired that kid again to babysit you two.” 

   “Eh? J-Ushijima's coming back?” 

   Hinata didn't wait for her answer before he raced back to his bedroom to get changed. He stood in front of his closet for a second, carefully running through options in his head-wait, why did it matter? 

   “They're just clothes,” he said to himself, snatching up the first thing his hand settled on. 

   He emerged from his room a few minutes later, dressed in a white t-shirt three times too big and black gym shorts. Standing in the living room door frame, he turned back to change but his mother stopped him.

   “Shoyo, get in here!”

   Natsu and his mom eating breakfast in the living room. Plopping himself down near the coffee table, he said a quick 'Itadakimasu' for his meal, then started wolfing it down. 

   His mother frowned. “Slow down, you're going to get hiccups. And is that really what you're wearing? Even Natsu is dressed better than you are.”

   It was true. Normally, Natsu piled on as many pieces of colorful clothing as she could, but surprisingly, this time she was dressed in a simple, frilly yellow sundress. Of course she chose  _ that  _ day to dress better than her older brother. 

   “Well whatever, I don't really have time to-,”

   Someone gave two sharp knocks on the door. Hinata's mom stood up and strode across the room; Hinata wiped rice off his face. He still couldn't see him with the foyer wall blocking his view, but he thought he heard them exchange a quick greeting. 

   When they did emerge from the foyer, Ushijima gave them a quick bow and said, “Good morning, Hinata family.”

   Hinata's traitor-heart started to beat faster again. It really was him. Again. 

   “Good morning, Ushijima-san,” they said back, interrupting their mother who had started giving rapid fire instructions about the meals for the day. It felt...kind of strange to be so formal.

   When his mom was done giving instructions, she slipped on her shoes, grabbed her purse and gave them her usual kisses: a peck on the check for Natsu and an air blown one for Hinata. 

   “Behave, I'll be back late tonight, I love you!” she said, closing the door behind herself. 

   Natsu immediately bounced up and ran towards him, her arms already in the air. “Up, up!”

   Ushijima gave a hesitant look towards the living room table. “After you finish your meal.”

   “Aww,” she said, sitting back down. 

   Ushijima went over to the coffee table and sat down next to Hinata. Hinata looked Ushijima up and down, his mind immediately going to last Sunday night. He looked different this time.  _ Why did you do that?  _ Dressed in khakis and a navy blue button down, his eyes looked darker than normal.  _ Was it cause you see me like a pet? Or a flower you're about to squash?  _ “Hey,” was all he managed to get out. 

   Ushijima frowned. Okay, maybe Hinata just said 'eek!'.

   “What would you like to do today? Do you have any homework you need help with, Hinata?”

   “No!”

   That was a lie. When Ushijima asked him what he wanted to do, an idea came to him immediately. He wanted to play volleyball with Ushijima. But would Ushijima do it, considering...what happened? 

   Hinata took a deep breath. “Actually...sinceyouralreadyherecouldyouhelpmetrainfornationals?”

   Ushijima gave him an inquisitive look; there was a moment of silence. Crap! Why did he have to say it like that? No-why did he have to say it at all? 

  "Yeah.”

   “Uooho, okay, sorry for ask-wait. Oh!” Hinata jumped up.

   Natsu giggled. “You're gonna play volleyball with U-shi-jima-chan? Losing at Twister wasn't silly enough?” 

   “Yeah! Hey-wait a second-no, nevermind,” Hinata said, whipping the empty breakfast bowls off the table and dumping them into the sink. He was in and out of his room with knee pads now on within seconds, and his volleyball shoes were slipped on in half that time. Rushing back into the kitchen, he flung open the back door; grinding to a halt when he noticed Ushijima wasn't following him out the door. 

   Ushijima tilted his head. “You're forgetting something.”

   “Huh? Oh! Right, we'll need water bottles! I'll get them!”

   “No,” Ushijima said, with a small smile, “The volleyball.”

   Hinata froze in horror.“The  _ volleyball _ _!  _ ”

   “Staying hydrated is good as well.” he said seriously, which made Hinata feel better.

   Nodding, he ran back to his room, digging through his gym bag for the volleyball. Then he headed into the kitchen, setting out two water bottles and a no-spill cup (Natsu freaked out when he called it a 'sippy-cup') filled with apple juice for Natsu. Hinata bound back into the living room and thrust Ushijima's water bottle at him. Ushijima's rose an eyebrow at him but took the water bottle. For a brief second, his fingers tips brushing against Hinata's hand. He nearly dropped the bottle; Hinata's hand felt very tingly all of the sudden and his whole body tensed up. What was that? Dropping his hand quickly, he let his eyes fall to the ground. 

   “Uhhm, we should now, go I mean-,”

   Ushijima cut him off by pressing the back of his palm to Hinata's forehead.

   “Gyaaa!” Hinata cried, jumping half a foot in the air. 

   “Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. Are you feeling ill? Your forehead isn't hot but your whole face is red.”

   “Ack, uhm..I'm just...really excited to practice volleyball!”

   He starred at Hinata for a moment. Hinata glanced up, but he couldn't tell if Ushijima believed him or not.

   “I see. Let's go practice then.”

   The three of them headed to the backyard, Natsu dashing ahead to get to her plastic chest full of outdoor toys. Ushijima looked around the yard. "If you have a volleyball net in your backyard, why would you practice indoors?"

  "Huh? But we aren't?"

  "Your mother told me about the window."

  "Gah! Whhhhhy?"

  "Most likely so I'd keep you from doing it again."

  "I wouldn't! The only reason I practiced inside was because it was midnight, and I couldn't see outside!"

  He looked amused. "Why were practicing at midnight instead of sleeping?"

  "Uhmmm. Can we get started now?"

  "Mm."

  They walked over to the net and Hinata plopped down on the grass, trying to get through his stretches as quickly as possible. After being reprimanded by Ushijima multiple times for counting too fast, they finally finished with their boring stretches. Hinata happily bounced up and held the volleyball out to Ushijima. "Can we please practice some tosses now?"

  Ushijima took the volleyball and stood up. "No. Your spikes are satisfactory. We're going to work on your weak receives."

  “Hhnng?”

  He crossed over to the other side of the net and got in position to serve. Hinata scrambled to the other side of the net, gulped hard, and got into position.

  "I'm ready!" he yelled.

  He was very, very wrong.

  
♥  ♥  ♥

  
   Hours later, Hinata laid face down in the grass. Ushijima was a strict teacher; his narrowed eyes when Hinata made an obvious error were even scarier than Daichi's 'I'll make you run laps' face. The sound of the backdoor opening and foot steps walking up to him was meet with a loud groan.

  
   "I made lunch." Ushijima said from above him.

  
   The strong smell of curry brought him out of his coma."Nnnngh. Everything hurts."

  
   "I can't carry you to the table. I'm holding the lunch." he said, walking away.

  
   Hinata, realizing that it was the first time he would get to eat something Ushijima made, hauled himself up and went over to the plastic play table Natsu and Ushijima sat at. Well, Natsu was sitting at the table, Ushijima was kneeling in the grass and hovering over the table with one elbow on it. Placed around the table were three steaming bowls of curry rice. Wincing, Hinata slid into the small pink table in front of one, said something that sounded like 'Itadakimasu' (but said by a dying man) and started scarfing down curry rice.

  Hinata was taken aback by the taste. He assumed it would be spicy, because of the strong smell. Instead, it was sweet. Kinda like he was eating flowers, especially since the rice was perfectly fluffy too.

  
   "Thif is so goog." he exclaimed with a full mouth.

  
   "Thank you. I...," he frowned.

  
   "What?"

  
   Ushijima reached out his hand and brushed the side of Hinata's face. Hinata was starting to feel like a movie that was being paused and started over and over, because once again he was frozen in place. It felt like all the heat from a hard practice crashed down on him at once and that's why his face was suddenly so hot...or something.

  
   "Why...did you?" he spluttered.

  
   "There was grass on your face,"

  
   "Oh. Th-thanks."

  
   He averted his eyes and looked down at his plate. Besides Natsu's quiet song singing in between bites, the small table was weighed down with a heavy silence. Despite his aching body, he rocked back and forth, trying to think of something to say. His whole face felt like his hand did earlier, which made it hard to think of anything. Why did Ushijima have to make him so nervous? Tall people should be outlawed, he decided. Although, that might make it harder to play volleyball. Or easier?

  
   "Thanks for today!” he eventually blurted out. “ I mean, not for babysitting, I'm not paying you for that, I mean the training...although I can't pay you for that either.” he mumbled. “I know it was bad to ask but I was just so excited! And you're such a good teacher! Everything you taught me is gonna help when...um...anyways thanks!"

  
   He rose an eyebrow. "What do you mean 'bad to ask'?"

  Hinata scratched the back of his neck. “Well...it's just, um, I didn't know if you'd be okay with...helpingtrainfornationals...I didn't want you to feel bad about not going...but you're actually really nice and I really need help but I'm still not sure if it's okay and-”

  Ushijima twisted around and placed his overly big hands on Hinata's shoulders. “Stop. It's counterproductive to worry about something that already occurred. Shiratorizawa lost, the world goes on. ”

  Hinata bit his lip and keep going. “Yeeeeah, _but,_ how you feel now is something that's happening now! I don't want you to feel bad and I don't want it to my fault...”

  “I don't feel bad though. I did, at first. Or, rather, I was frustrated. Disappointed. However, we lost to... talented, hard working players. It wasn't shameful. I don't have many regrets, neither does my team. Furthermore, Shiratorizawa still practices, we still work hard. Our third years have already been offered sports scholarships. I don't feel bad, so you don't either.”

  He pouted. “Kay.”

  Ushijima opened his mouth but paused, like he was considering his words very carefully. “Though your technique has many flaws-”

  “H-hey!”

  “I'm confident you and Karasuno have a chance at nationals. So, do your best. Be sure to make no mistakes, because if Shiratorizawa had to sit out so Karasuno could fail where we would have succeeded-,”

  “Okay, okay!” Hinata said loudly, his face bright red. He bounced up. "Okay, okay, no more mushy talk! Let's practice some more!"

  
   Ushijima also stood up, but instead of heading back to the net, he bent down and gathered up their plates. Hinata looked around, just then noticing that Natsu had already finished and was back at her toy bin. "No. It's time for us to take a break now."

  
   "A break? But we just started!"

  
   "We've been practicing for hours," he said, walking back towards the house.

  
   "I know! But we can still do way more! Please!"

  
   Ushijima ignored his pleas, but held the door open for him.

  
   "Thanks," he mumbled, and marched inside without glancing up.

  He immediately retreated to his room to stretch out (and sulk). Why was Ushijima so rigid? Was he like that all the time, or just around Hinata?

  
   Twenty minutes later he was stretched out and sprawled across his bed reading manga, his sulking completely forgotten. There was a light knock on the door. Definitely Natsu.

  
   He flipped his manga over to save the spot and pulled open his door, revealing his little sister. "Whacha want, Natsu?”

  
   "Let's go play another game with Ushi-chan!"

  Despite a twinge of the desire to sulk re-appearing, Hinata was overcome with the even desire to win at least _one_ game of Twister. 

  “Sure!”

  They walked out into the living room to find to Ushijima in the kitchen, drying dishes.

  Hinata squawked. “Oh! You didn’t have to do dishes. I would have done them…eventually.”

  He shrugged, his broad shoulders going up and down in an exaggerated motion. Did he do that on purpose?

  “I had nothing better to do.”

  Natsu bounced up on her toes. “Lieee-ar! You can play a game with us! We can play Twister again!”

  Ushijima frowned, quickly finishing drying a plate. “No Twister again. Ever.”

  “Eh? You didn't like it?” Hinata said, sounding a little hurt “But you won?”

  “No. It wasn't that...I'm just...sore now. From practice.”

  Hinata narrowed his eyes. Apparently, according to Daichi, and Suga, and Kageyama, and also, everybody else ever, he wasn't great at noticing when someone was lying but...that definitely sounded like a lie. Especially since Ushijima's face had a weird red tint to it.

  “Awww. Hmm…oh! We can play menko! Shou and I have cards, and you do too, don’t cha? You said you did.”

  “I do, but…”

  “Did you bring them in your back pack?”

  “I did, however-,”

  “Yay! We’ll go get ours so get yours out too, okay?”

  Natsu was pulling Hinata towards their rooms before Ushijima even had a chance to respond. Hinata dug through the piles of junk on his shelves before he produced a small stack of menko cards. They were mostly Naruto ones, but he’d won a few random other ones. Natsu’s deck was entirely Love!Live!Sunshine cards, so she and Hinata didn’t play very often. Hinata went back into the living room, soon followed by Natsu. Ushijima was standing stiffly in the middle of the room; his hands clenched around the cards, obscuring them from Hinata’s view. His eyes definitely weren't playing tricks on him-Ushijima's face was red. That made Hinata feel a certain way he couldn't explain, like a mix of two feelings.

  “Heeey! I can’t see your cards, your hands are too big! Shhoooow me!”

  Ushijima's jaw clenched but he bent forward anyways and showed Natsu his hand. Hinata crowed forward too to get a glimpse of his card and...huh? They were...Sailor Moon cards? Was Hinata going crazy? It seemed like he had the whole set, and the cards looked like they were special edition too, a few of them had special glitter effects. A mental image of Ushijima sitting cross legged on a Sailor Moon bed spread flashed across Hinata’s mind; he bit down on his lip to repress laughter. He opened his mouth to say something, probably something like “Err, what the hell?” but then he didn't. The look on Ushijima's face made it seem like he didn't want to be teased about it, and Hinata wasn't about to test the nice-but-scary 6'4-ish guy. Besides, secretly, he felt kinda gushy inside that only he (and Natsu) knew about this side of the normally scary Shiratorizawa captain.

  “Ohmygoshthey’resocute! And shiny! I love them so much!”

  Ushijima gave her a small smile; he seemed to relax a little bit. “Thank you.” He turned to Hinata. “My niece got me into it.”

  “O-okay. I think they're nice,” he said. Ushijima looked really, really relieved, and it made Hinata feel awesome. And now he knew he had a niece.

  “Shoyo,” Natsu shouted, shaking Hinata’s arm, “you have to win me some! Pleeeeease!”

   Hinata went from happy to nervous instantly. “Um...it's been awhile since I've played...,”

   She reached up and clutched his arm, gazing up at him with big, fierce eyes. “If you don't get me some of those cards, you can't be my nii-chan anymore. I'll hire a new one. I'll-I'll...Ushijima will be my new nii-chan!”

   Hinata gaped, and tried to ignore the surprised smile on Ushijima's face. “Fine! Okay! I will! I'll definitely win you those cards!”

♥ ♥ ♥

   At first, Ushijima was surprisingly bad at Menko. Natsu insisted on starting; tossing her card harshly on the floor. Hinata went second, throwing his card far from Natsu's. His guess was that if Ushijima had to choose between them, based on his own cards, he'd go for Natsu's card. He was wrong. Ushijima went for his card, but was unable to flip it over. In the next handful of rounds, Hinata managed to win almost all of Ushijima's cards, whooping and chirping with each one, and Natsu won a few of Ushijima's and a few of Hinata's. Strangely, Ushijima really seemed to struggle with the game. Hinata grinned to himself,  _ finally _ , there was something he was a ton better at than Ushijima was, even if that thing was Menko. 

   “Hey, Japan, I'm gonna wiiiiin,” Hinata sang, flipping over another one of his cards. 

   Ushijima only grunted in response, but his brow was furrowed. 

   Hinata's confidence took a sharp and sudden hit. At the tail end of the game, Ushijima seemed to hit his stride and hit them both with a technique Hinata had never even seen before. His whole arm are seemed to go  _ whoosh  _ but his wrist did a tiny little gwah motion and the card looked like it was flying like a graceful dove through the air but always made the other cards go  _ splish _ really hard when it hit the floor. In as little as five of Ushijima's turns, the game had completely been turned around. It ended with Ushijima winning his whole hand back, winning the majority of Hinata's cards, and winning a handful of Natsu's cards. 

   “You-you tricked us!” Hinata said, as he watched Ushijima picked all the cards he won off the floor. 

   “What?”

   “You totally pretended you couldn't play and then gwah! You swooped in at the last second and took all the cards!” he said, crossing his arms.

   “I've never played before; it took me time to figure out the most effective strategy. It's you're own fault if your technique is weak.” he said, his olive eyes staring Hinata down.

   “Hey! It's not-...you've never played before? I don't get it?”

   He shrugged. “There wasn't anyone to play with.”

   “But then why do you have a lot of cards?” Natsu said. 

   Ushijima shrugged. “Like you said. They're nice.”

   Natsu light up.“Oh! I get it! You just like how they look! Me too! Me too! I think playing with them is more fun though. You should play with Shou and I more often!”

   Hinata refused to look at him. “But I don't have any cards anymore so....”

   “Oh,” he mumbled quietly, looking down at the cards in his hand, “I don't want these.”

   Quick as a whip, Ushijima shoved Hinata's cards back into his hands and then knelt down to Natsu's level to return hers. Hinata looked down at his cards, dumbfounded. “But...you won these?”

   “I don't want them. Cards won from such a weak opponent are worthless.” 

   “Hey! Shuddap!” 

   He watched Ushijima slip two of his own cards into Natsu's Love! Live! Sunshine deck when he gave them back to her. The ones with glitter on them. 

   “Yay! Ushi-chan can come play with us sometimes, then!”

   He was quiet for a moment. “Hm. Yeah.”

   The thought of Ushijima coming over to play Menko with them again struck a cord inside Hinata. They would see him again? Not just when he was getting paid to be around them, but because he wanted to come? He'd hang out with them, play Menko, give Natsu piggyback rides, tell Hinata stories and ruffle his hair...just because he wanted to? It was weird being around Ushijima. Weird, awkward, scary. Hinata knew all that and yet...he wanted to see Ushijima again. He was more restless than usual the whole week after Ushijima's last visit but when he was right in front of Hinata...he felt calm. Calmer, but more excited than usual too. Weren't people only suppose to feel one of those at a time? 

   Hinata was glad when Natsu interrupted his thoughts. She wanted to watch her hour of cartoons (Mom let it be an hour because it was the weekend) so Ushijima, Natsu, and Hinata all piled in Natsu's room and Ushijima diligently set the timer on his phone. Natsu scooted as close to the T.V as Ushijima would let her; Hinata and Ushijima sat leaning against Natsu's bed at the back of the room. They watched cartoons in silence. Mostly. 

   “Stop,” Ushijima grunted eventually.

   “Stop what?” Hinata whispered back. 

   “You're staring. It's weird.”

   Hinata felt his face heat up. Because he was sitting close enough to touch Ushijima he was very careful to not move his head, only looking at him out of the corners of his eyes. How did Ushijima know he was looking at him? Or more specifically, his ridiculously broad shoulders?

   “I wasn't!” he whined, a little too loudly. He snuck a quick look at Natsu, who paid no attention to them. 

   “You were. I could feel it.”

   Hinata shivered. “I wasn't. I was thinking about volleyball!”

   “I don't doubt that. Why were looking at me while you were thinking about volleyball?”

   “I just...I was just-gah! You're ridiculous. So-” Hinata mumbled, sweeping his hands around in a 'broad shoulder' motion.

   “What is-,” Ushijima said, moving his hands in the “broad shoulder” motion.

   Hinata cringed and crossed his arms, his face completely bright red. He didn't say another word. Luckily, Ushijima let it go, but Hinata could feel his intense eyes trained onto the side of his face. When the alarm went off, Hinata almost jumped out of his skin. Natsu whined and pleaded for 5 more minutes of cartoons, pleas which fell on deaf ears. After switching off the cartoons and shutting down the alarm, he turned to the both of them. “What additional activities would you like to do?

   “I wanna watch cartoons! Pleeeeeeease!” Natsu said, giving him her best watery puppy dog eyes.

   Ushijima was silent for a second. Maybe even the mighty Ushijima wasn't completely immune to their magical powers? 

   “N-no. What additional activities would you like to do?”

  “We could-unh, we could play...Concentration! Yeah, Concentration!” Hinata said, trying to stop a tantrum in it's tracks. Ushijima definitely wasn't coming back if Natsu kicked him.

  “What's Concentration?”

  Natsu lit up again. “Okay, okay, first you and Shou have to sit with me in a circle!”

  Ushijima obediently shuffled closer to her and Hinata scooted forward.

  “And, um, next everyone puts their hands out and puts their left hand under someone's right hand, and their right hand on top of someone's left.”

  Everyone shuffled into position, with Hinata's right hand over Ushijima's left hand, his left hand under Natsu's, and Natsu's right hand under Ushijima's. Ushijima's hand felt calloused in Hinata's, and heavy, and really...warm? Was it just Hinata's imagination or was he sweating? Or maybe Hinata was the one sweating? There's no way Ushijima would feel nervous about this kind of game. Hinata glanced up at Ushijima, trying to see his face, but his eyes looked straight forward.

  “And then the next thing is we sing, 'This is the game of concentration, no mistakes or hesitation, and the category is-,' and everyone claps the hand of on the person on their left with their right hand while we sing, and whoever gets their hand clapped when the song is over picks the category! Then we keep hitting hands around the circle, and everyone has to say something from the category when their hand is clapped. If Shou can't think of something, or says something someone else already said, then he's out!”

  “Hey! Wha-why am I the bad example?”

  "Because," she said in between giggles,"you're always messing up when we play. You forget the topic and accidentally say a volleyball thing or you say something I said already!"

  Ushijima gave him a small smile. "Sounds like Hinata."

  “Hey!” Hinata yelled as Natsu laughed even harder, “ don't you two go and form some kinda alliance against me!”

  Ushijima's smile got just a tiny bit wider, which was the last straw before Hinata's face became completely red.

  "Okay, let's start already," he mumbled.

  So they started. Everyone began singing after Natsu:

  "This is the game of concentration, no repeats or hesitation, and the category is-," they chanted, their hands rising and falling and hitting with smooth rhythm. It was a little odd to play Concentration with Ushijima, his hands hit much harder than Natsu's did, and they felt rougher. However, it was hard to focus on any of that when Hinata heard Ushijima sing with them. He sounded like he was dying, or like a village giant being shot down by a thousand tiny villager arrows. Hinata couldn't help but grin. He was starting to understand the strange feeling he got around Ushijima when he saw his Menko cards or helped Hinata with homework. It was like he was collecting puzzle pieces that no one else even knew about. The thought seemed weird to Hinata as soon as he had it, but he couldn't shake it out of his head.

  When they sung the last syllable, Ushijima's hand smacked onto Hinata's, bringing him back to planet Volleyball-ack, no, planet _Earth_.

  "Gwah! Oh, okay, I'll pick. Um, the category is-volleyball!"

  
   "Aww, not again Shou! You always pick that one!"

  
   "Whining isn't a volleyball thing!" Hinata sang, hitting her hand.

  
   "Fiiine. Volleyball net," she said, slapping Ushijima's hand.

  
   "Kill," he said with an iron voice.

   
   "Spike," he said, hitting Natsu's hand.

  
   "Those shirts with numbers on them," she said cheerfully.

  
   "Set point,"

  
   "Dumps!"

  
   "Uhhhgh...those...um, guys with whistles?"

  
   "You mean coaches?" Hinata supplied.

  
   Ushijima shook his head solemnly. "Hesitation. You are no longer a player."

  
   “That's why I said no volleyball! I always lose that one...,” Natsu said regretfully, but dutifully withdrew her hands from the circle.

  "Okay, now that there's two players, you guys have to face each other and sit criss-cross apple sauce.

  “Um, okay,” Hinata mumbled, shuffling across the carpet. His hands hesitated for a second in the air before he slid his left hand under Ushijima's larger, heavier one, and placed his right hand open-palmed on top of Ushijima's left one. Hinata tried his hardest not to look up. Why did he feel like this? Why, why, why? Of course Hinata was competitive, which made him a little nervous, but he was never _this_ competitive, at least not about Concentration.  And yet, he felt like the sound of his heartbeat could fill the whole room.

  The rhythm of the game shifted when it was just the two of them. They went back and forth much quicker, almost three times per word; Hinata got to pick the category again.

  “Uoohoh...um...things that make you happy!” he announced.

  It was a relatively easy category (although all categories were harder with just two people because you had less time to think) and it was Hinata's second favorite.

  “Volleyball,” Hinata said, tapping Ushijima's hand.

  “Family.”

  “Natsu!”

  “Hey-, you can't use me!”

  Hinata stuck his tongue out at her and tapped Ushijima's hand again.

  “My team.”

  Damn, he was planning on using that one next.

  “Meatbuns!” he shouted, because he was quick on his feet, and also hungry.

  “Crops.”

  “My friends!”

  “You.”

  “Sp-eh?” Wait, what? Did he...hear that right? Ushijima's face was blank, well mostly, his eyes seemed wider than normal. Did he not mean to say that out loud? He couldn't have-there was no way-

  “Out. You're out.” Ushijima suddenly said, his eyes narrowing.

  Natsu gasped happily and was already wriggling her way back into the circle before Hinata could even blink. The three of them were placing their hands back into formation. They started to sing and smack hands again, but Hinata wasn't really present. What did Ushijima just say? Did he really say that? He couldn't have, it just wasn't possible. Right?

  “ _You.”_

♥ ♥ ♥

  They played for hours. The world was actually a lot larger than most people thought it was, or rather, there were a lot more categories than Hinata thought there would be. Ushijima picked mostly plant based categories (types of flowers, types of trees, types of crops, parts of a plant...there were also many more plant based categories than Hinata thought there would be). At first, Hinata thought he was showing off his superior knowledge when Hinata and Natsu would get out and he would keep listing plants...but after going into great detail about the importance of crop rotation, it struck Hinata that he just really, really liked plants. It also stuck Hinata that if he knew 24 different kinds of flowers, he probably had a favorite. In the next round, he was busy wondering which one it was, trying to imagine the tall as a tower Ushijima with a bouquet a red roses or soft white lilies. This train of thought was probably why he quickly lost the round when the category was 'colors'. 

  
   Eventually, the last of the sunlight disappeared from the slats in the blinds and Ushijima suddenly withdrew his hands.

  
   "It's time for me to make dinner," he said, standing up suddenly and smoothly, as if he hadn't just been sitting for hours. 

  
   Natsu bounced up, equally as easily. "Can I help?"

  
   "Okay."

  Hinata laughed to himself, also getting up. "Show off! Mom always has to force you to help!"

  
   "No! I'm-I'm being nice! For our guest!,” she said, pouting slightly. “Wait here, I'm going to go get my cooking apron,” she added, turning and running out of the room. 

  Ushijima and Hinata were left standing next to each other, not talking. Hinata glanced down at the floor and slightly clicked his toes together. 

  He cleared his throat. “Thanks, uhm, for playing with us, I had fun! I mean, uh, we had fun. Natsu and I, I mean. I don't know if you had fun. But I'm still glad that you played with us.”

  Ushijima gave him a nod. “I did. I'd like...to play again sometime. If you and Natsu would like.”

  “Okay! That sounds fun! Although,” Hinata thought out loud, “you don't have to hit my hand so hard. Next time be gentler!” he said, rubbing the affected hand.

  Ushijima's eyes widened. With no warning, he grabbed Hinata's left hand, yanking it up to his face, pulling Hinata up on to his tip toes. 

  “It is red,” he muttered, seemingly to himself. Ushijima stroked the palm of his hand with his thumb, focusing on it so intensely that Hinata was worried Ushijima's eyes would burn a hole right through it. He was suddenly wishing he hadn't said anything. 

  “Well, yeah, that's what happens when you hit it hard a bunch of times but-mmmhph!” Hinata said, but he was cut off by Ushijima pulling Hinata's hand even higher, up to his lips, to press a soft kiss on his palm. At first, he was too shocked to have any reaction at all. Then, the warmth on Hinata's palm seemed to surge through whole body; and the redness that colored it seemed to spread and paint every surface of him. Ushijima dropped his hand back down and let Hinata fall back to his feet. 

  “Is that better?”

  “Mmmhhhmm. Th-thanks.” Hinata choked out, staring at the ground, as stiff as a board. 

  He looked at Hinata inquisitively. “Are you-,”

  Whatever he was going to say was cut off by Natsu running back into the room.

  “I'm ready!” she sang, twirling around in her too big apron.

  Well, technically, it was their mom's apron, but Natsu loved it so much she always found a way to get her hands on it not matter how well their mother hid it. Even with the white frosting smeared all over the front (Natsu's doing), she still thought the soft, dramatic pink frills at it's edges were the cutest thing ever. It even had pockets.

  “Let's go cook!” she chimed. 

  Ushijima gave her a nod and shot Hinata one last questioning look before he followed Natsu out of the room. Which meant that Hinata was left standing there, alone with his thoughts. That was mean. He wandered back to his room and flopped onto his bed, dazed. That wasn't normal, was it? Did Ushijima do that with everyone? He tried to remember Ushijima on the court, how he acted around his teammates, but the adrenaline had clouded his memory. Is this what he was like? After a game, did his teammates line up to get their sore hands kissed? It was hard (and also funny) for Hinata to imagine that being true, but Ushijima  _did_ kiss Hinata's hand. Hinata rolled over on his bed and reached for his phone. 

  
    **To Kageyama:**

_hey_

**To Kageyama:**

_is it normal to kiss someone's hand if it hurts?_

**From Kageyama:**   
    _?_

**From Kageyama:**

_Maybe? It depends on the context, I guess? Why are you asking?_

**To Kageyama:**

_no reason. what's a good context?_

**From Kageyama:**

_A younger sibling scratches it, or your spouse burns it, or something. What the hell is going on over there? You kiss someone's hand?_

  Hinata stared down at his phone, blushing at the word spouse.

**To Kageyama:**

_NO! so it's not a friend thing to do?_

**From Kageyama:**

_No._

**From Kageyama:**

_If you kiss my hand I'm punching you. Dumbass._

  Hinata tossed his phone back onto his bed and buried his head in his hands. He was officially confused. Did Ushijima think of him like a little brother? The thought was embarrassing, he definitely didn't want Ushijima to think of him that way. He wanted Ushijima to think the was cool, and good at volleyball, and really cute, and-wait. What was that last one? Cute? But why? Was that normal, wanting your competitor/babysitter/maybe-friend to think you're cute? He didn't know, Hinata couldn't recall wanting someone to think he was cute before. Attractive yes, but only in a general sense, because everyone wanted to be attractive to other people, didn't they?  
He tried once again to think hard about what Hinata wanted from him. After all, he did want  _something_ from Ushijima; he had been so excited when his mom said he was coming back. But what was it? He wanted...he wanted Ushijima to come back and practice volleyball with him, he wanted to play Menko again, and hopefully Twister again, he wanted more of his cooking and more of his 'bed time stories', and more of his small smiles that no one else got to see, and he wanted to be carried again, and he wanted more hand kisses. Did that mean he wanted to be friends? It didn't feel like it though, because he never felt like this around Kageyama or Kenma or Yachi. He was happy when he spent time with them, but after they left he didn't feel restless. 

  He stared up at his ceiling for a few minutes. He felt like there was something obvious right in front of him; like there was a word on the tip of his tongue except it was actually an important thought in the back of his mind. 

_Ushijima...Ushijima coming back, games, volleyball-no, wrong game...he's so much nicer than I thought he would be...homework help and volleyball practice...don't want him to leave tonight, but not in a friend way...not like Kageyama...he takes everything I say so seriously...it's nice...not like Kenma...or Yachi...YACHI!_

  Hinata sat up so fast that his head spun. Yachi! Suddenly he remembered something she had said about her relationship with Kiyoko. 

  “ _No, I don't mind, it's a fair question. The difference...I guess I don't really know how to explain it. It's not like friendship because...I guess because I don't feel content when she's not around? With my other friends, I feel happier than normal when they're around. With Kiyoko-san, I feel happier than normal when she's around, but also more anxious than normal when she's not. I guess you can feel that too with a friend you're very close too, but that feeling combined with wanting to know what she's thinking all the time, and what she's feeling right now, wanting to comfort her when she's sad, wanting to be the one that makes her happy, and...wanting to...touch her, that all let's me know it's a romantic kind of like.”_

  
   That's how he felt too! So...that meant he liked Ushijima? Romantically? He had a crush on him? That seemed...possible. He has always admired Ushijima, and not just when it came to volleyball. Hinata admired the cool, confident way he acted, he was in awe of how passionately he spoke to his team. He took everything very seriously, which was good just on it's own but it also made Hinata curious about how he would react to certain things. Looks wise, he also wasn't just jealous of Ushijima. He liked his short brown hair cut in a way that made him look more mature than everyone else, he liked his pretty eyes, and well, his whole frame in general. The way he floated above the ground mid-block and somehow looked like he was made of marble and feathers, compared with the funny way he took up whole rooms, or how he looked sitting at Natsu's plastic table. Competing against Ushijima excited him, but it also made him happy. And more surprisingly, being around Ushijima made him happy as well. He didn't want him to go home. And he didn't want things to stay the same either. He wanted even more. Even Hinata had to admit that sounded like a crush.

  Hinata stared up at the ceiling. He seemed to be staring at his ceiling a lot lately, maybe he should've painted something cool up there to look at. What next? If Hinata had a crush on Ushijima, and he  _found out,_ what would happen? Would Ushijima like him back? And then? They would date? Hinata reached behind himself and got a pillow to smother his face with. No, first, someone had to confess,  _and then_ came volleyball practice dates. But did Ushijima actually like him back? How was Hinata suppose to know? It was too hard to tell what Ushijima was thinking. What if Hinata confessed and Ushijima rejected him and stopped coming over and refused to play against Karasuno ever again? Well, that would probably make it easier to win, but that wasn't the point. If Hinata couldn't confess, then Ushijima would have to do it. Would he? He tried to imagine it; Ushijima asking Hinata to come to one of Shiratorizawa's practices with a red face. It was sweet, but it didn't seem likely at all. 

  Hinata was tired of thinking about it. He sat up, grabbed his phone and headed back into the living room. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all!!! Thank you so much for all the kudos/comments/bookmarks!!! Given that the Oompa Loompas don't come get this dumb gay while singing a song about Sloth and Failing the SATs, I plan to update again on 12/4/17. I hope to see you then!!!


	3. Chapter Three

  Natsu and Ushijima were in the kitchen, and based on the noises coming out of the kitchen, it sounded like Ushijima was cooking, and Natsu was making a mess. 

  “Hi, Shou! Did you come to help us cook?” Natsu called.

  “Um, no. I came to play phone games in the living room,” Hinata said, plopping down on the couch.

  “Oh. Couldn't you do that in your room?” she said, poking her head out into the living room.

  Hinata shrugged. “It was boring being by myself! So I came out here.”

  Natsu shrugged too and went back to her mess. Hinata opened Neko Atsume and let himself focus on his digital cats. With the combination of that and the pleasant background noise of stirring and shifting and food being spilled on the counter (Natsu again), it was easy to keep his mind off anything puzzling. 

  “We’re done!” Natsu hollered some time later, slamming a wooden spoon down on the counter a few times, like a gavel.

  Hinata looked up to see Ushijima headed towards him with two plates of Korokke, and Natsu trailing behind him with a smaller, pink plastic plate.

  “Turn your phone off,” Ushijima instructed, setting a plate down in front of Hinata and setting his down to the left.

  “Yes, mom,” he grumbled, but there wasn’t any real annoyance in it. He was much more focused on trying not to make direct eye contact with Ushijima. Hinata shut his phone off and said ‘Itadakimasu’ with the rest of the table.

  He got to work immediately afterward, shoveling food in his into his mouth and scooping more onto his fork while he chewed. For the most part, that was just how he ate, but unfortunately he was now aware of his maybe-feelings and wanted a good excuse to not talk to Ushijima. Natsu paid him no mind, but Ushijima watched him with a mix of shock, (as if he hadn’t been there at lunch) amusement, and concern.

  “If you cut your food with your fork, and chewed slower, it would aid your digestion,” he said, turning to his own plate and cutting off a piece of fried patty, as if setting an example.

  Hinata pretended not to hear him and kept going. Once the roof of his mouth cooled down a little, although he kept his normal pace, he realized that the food was _amazing,_ just like it was at lunch time. He blew on his food the next time so he could actually taste it again.

  “I know you said you learned to cook for self-sufficiency and stuff, but did you really work hard to be this good or are you just talented at everything?” Hinata said, unthinkingly.

  Ushijima shrugged. “ I never thought much about taste, I only put the right amount of effort in and tried to do things correctly .”

  Hinata pouted and looked down at his food, thinking of how the only thing he could make being _severely_ burnt toast.

  “But you’re _really_ good. This seems like so much dedication to put into a basic need…I guess you’re that kind of person though,” he said, still thinking of his many attempts at non-burnt toast.

  Ushijima didn't say anything for a few seconds so Hinata snuck a look at him out the corners of his eyes. He looked kinda...flattered?

  “Actually…it was more fun than I thought it would be. Enjoying it most likely contributed to my improved skills.”

  Hinata froze mid bite. That was surprisingly…what was the word? He couldn't think of it, but he felt like he understood.

  Hinata finished his dinner first (and then promptly got the hiccups), then Natsu, and then surprisingly, Ushijima. He seemed to take the whole 'proper, healthy digestion,' thing really seriously. Natsu and Hinata followed Ushijima's lead when he said 'gochiso sama deshita,' (although Hinata said gochiso sa-hic-ma deshita).  
Then Ushijima rose, quickly cleared away their plates, and retreated to the kitchen.

  “Oh gehh, he's going to do dishes again,” Hinata said.

  Natsu stood up next. "I'll help, then. After all, I am still in my apron!"

  "Hey Natsu,” he said quickly, “do you wanna play games on my phone instead?"

   "Huh? But you never let me play on your phone?"

  Why was she so darn question-y? "Do you want to play or not?"

  She snatched the phone from his outstretched hand. "Thanks Shou-,"

  "Yeahhuh, just be really careful to not buy anything-,"

  "Yeah, yeah, okay," she mumbled, already drowning out the sound of his voice with the soft music of a dress-up game.

  Heading toward the kitchen, Hinata could help but congratulate himself for being smart enough to download all those games for Natsu-bribing purposes. He entered the kitchen, and sure enough, Ushijima was doing dishes. Hinata cleared his throat. Ushijima reached for the faucet, and then gave Hinata a questioning look.

  "Um. It's very nice that you're doing dishes...again, but let me do them, okay?" Hinata said.

  Ushijima gave him a weird look, but nodded and stepped aside. Hinata took his place scrubbing and swirling soap around; Ushijima busied himself with storing and putting away the left overs. Hinata pouted to himself. That's not what he wanted. He wanted to look kinda cool in front of Ushijima. Why was Ushijima so damn perfect?

  Well maybe he wasn't _perfect_. He was blunt and intense and too formal sometimes, but Hinata was starting to anticipate his responses. It made him weirdly happy. Hinata started scrubbing the dishes a little harder than necessary. The refrigerator opened and closed again, pulling him out of his thoughts . Glancing over at the now empty counter, he waited for the sound of Ushijima leaving the kitchen to follow. Instead, he heard the sound of kitchen drawers being slipped open and rummaged through. Hinata turned.

  “Hey, whatcha doing?”

  “This is where a small notepad and a pencil should be kept.” he said, still looking.

  Should be kept? What the heck?

  “Uhooh, we don’t have any in there?”

  There was a beat of silence. “Why not? It’s important to keep some near the phone,” he said, jerking his head towards the landline on the wall, “for taking messages, and for leaving important family notes on the fridge.”

  Yep. Definitely a flawed weirdo. Hinata tried to hide his smile.

  “Well, it’s not there. If you want some, there’s some in the top draw of the desk organizer in the office. There should be pencils and pens in a cup on the desk too. It’s bright green, you can’t miss it. The cup, I mean, not the desk.” He wanted to stop saying things, but unfortunately, he did not. “I'm sure you wouldn't miss a whole desk. Because your eyes are sharp. Not sharp-I mean yeah they are, but what I'm mean is you're observant, I mean,” he rambled, turning red.

  Ushijima frowned but didn't mention Hinata rambling. “That’s no where near the phone.”

  “Nope!” he said, feeling relieved. He turned back to his dishes.

  After a second or so, Ushijima walked away; Hinata swore he could hear the confusion in his footsteps. The second he left, Hinata's smile fell off his face. When he was around Ushijima, he forgot that he was trying not to interact with him too much, and he forgot the reason _why._ Despite all the flapping butterflies in his stomach he was suddenly aware of, it was easy to talk to him. He had fun. Turning back to the dishes, he scrubbed furiously, poring tons of soap on the plates, and splashing the soap off with a full blast of water. The dishes got done faster than they had ever been done before (though the front of Hinata's shirt was very wet when he was finished). Ushijima still hadn't come back for what ever weird reason, so Hinata worked on drying dishes...and then on wiping down counters...and just as Hinata was about to check to see if Ushijima was okay, he reappeared with the notebook, pencil and four ripped out pages. Ushijima looked around the kitchen. “Everything looks clean, thank you.”

  “Uhhhm...I am the one that lives here,” he said defensively.

  He nodded, and turned to the cabinet drawers, and put the pencil and paper in the drawer closest to the phone. Hinata stifled a laugh. He closed the distance between them with a few long steps, then pressed the four small pieces of paper into Hinata's hands.

  "What are-," he said, holding the pages up to his face.

  In small, packed together characters were dozens and dozens of...cooking notes? His eyes scanned page after page of simple cooking tips, from how to better boil eggs, to how to use a kitchen knife, to a chart of recipe fractions converted into other fractions, all the way to how to bake the best German chocolate cake. Hinata was dumbfounded.

  "You didn't have to do this. I mean, thank you, it's all really helpful! I didn't know about any of this, and I do like cake, so um, I’m happy. But y’know I wasn’t that serious right? You didn’t have to take me so seriously.”

  Hinata didn’t understand the look that flickered across Ushijima’s face. Confusion? Hurt? Either way he regretted saying it immediately. Ushijima's face went slack a second later and he held out his hand for the papers back.

  Hinata snatched his hands back and held the papers to his chest. “Eh! No, I’m keeping them! It was really nice of you! I was just, what I was trying to say was that it was nice. Of you to do that. I just felt bad that you did all this,” he said, shaking the papers a little, “but I guess you take everything super seriously and it’s different from other people but also nice. I guess what I was trying to say was that you aren’t scary like I thought you’d be like off court at all! Although, I probably would have know that if you smiled like you did earlier more often!” he said, all at once.

  Hinata, having run out of dumb things to blurt out, clamped his mouth shut and let his eyes fall to floor. Why was he rambling? Was this what having a crush was like? Just saying the worst possible things ever, for always?

  Ushijima opened his mouth to say something but Hinata cut him off, trying to switch topics to avoid hearing whatever version of ‘what the hell are you talking about’ that he was going to say.

  “Oh! By the way! Talking about taking things too seriously, isn’t it almost 8:30?”

  He frowned and glanced at his watch. “Oh. You should get ready for bed. I’ll go tell Natsu.”

  Ushijima headed into the living room and Hinata went into his room. He dug through his desk drawer for tape, then hopped onto his bed and tapped the papers right above his pillow.

  “Who knows, maybe I'll absorb the cooking knowledge in my sleep,” he mumbled to himself.

  Next he changed into his softest pajamas (they had little sheep on them) and went to brush his teeth. From the bathroom, he could hear Ushijima reading to Natsu; he smiled to himself.

  It was strange that he was so good with kids. Hinata wondered to himself if he spent a lot of time with his niece.

  Sitting back down on the couch, Hinata grabbed his abandoned phone. There were a bunch of pictures of girls in sparkly outfits saved. Hinata couldn't bring himself to delete them, so he just left them. It looked like she'd put a ton of effort into the outfits; maybe she'd grow up to be a fashion designer? He did a quick swipe through his phone games, most of which were cat themed (all Kenma’s recommendations) and settled on MewMew Tower because he hadn’t played in a while. Objectively, he was kinda terrible at the game, but he played it for a good ten minutes straight anyways because the art was really colorful and cute, but mostly because the cats made funny meowing sounds whenever he dropped them on each other.

  Ushijima came back into the living room a little bit later and stood in front of Hinata. Hinata looked up; his hand slipped and the digital cats sang _meow meow meow_ as his cat tower came tumbling down.

  “Aw, you made my cat tower fall down,” he said pouting, and setting his phone on the table.

  Ushijima frowned. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Pfft. Heya, I wanted to ask you something, but I kept forgetting. Why are you here?”

  His frown deepened. “ I am here as your babys-,”

  “Ahhh, you don't have to say that word! That's not what I meant! I mean, like, why are you here? When my mom offered to pay you to b-watch us, you knew her name was Hinata. And you knew that I'm from this district because of school! So...you probably knew that the Hinata you were going to babysit and Karasuno's Hinata were the same Hinata but you still took the job? I thought maybe you wanted revenge-or, or something...but I don't think that's it so...why?”

  Ushijima's eyes were wide and Hinata bit his lip. He really wanted to know...but maybe he should have phrased it different? There was a very long pause while Ushijima stared at the wall. He looked like he was thinking though, so Hinata waited as patiently as he could manage.

  “Now is not the time for this. It's time for bed.” he said suddenly.

  “Eek!” Hinata protested involuntary. Was Ushijima avoiding the question? That didn't seem like him. Nevertheless, he was now distracted. “No way, I'm not going!”

  Ushijima seemed slightly relieved rather than annoyed. “Why not?”

_If you want me to go to bed, you’ll have to carry me there!_

  “Because it’s 8:30 and I’m not going to bed!”

_Carry me there!_

  “It’s 8:34. Are we going to have this argument every time?”

_Carry me!_

  “Depends. Do you plan on trying to make me go to bed at 8:34 every time?”

  He let out a heavy sigh and dropped down suddenly, scooping Hinata up and standing back up as smoothly as one person could possibly make that action go. Even though he was anticipating it, Hinata made some kind of high pitched squeaking noise and dug his fingers into Ushijima’s shoulders.

  “See? It would have been easier for you to walk,” he said, heading towards Hinata room.

  “Don’t care,” Hinata mumbled, feeling his face heat up.

  Ushijima gave him a strange look; Hinata turned his head. Of course, he was right, it would have been easier to walk, because for one thing, with Ushijima that close, his head was filled with the scent of cedar and he was knew he was making a really weird face about it. The second reason he was right was that Hinata was hyper aware of Ushijima’s hands. One was placed under Hinata’s knee and the other was cupped around Hinata’s shoulder; Ushijima's hands were rough and strong but they didn't hurt. It was like he wasn’t even struggling with the weight. Overall, the situation did nothing but make him even more jittery, but Hinata still didn’t want to be put down. He was warm and cozy right where he was.

  Regardless, Ushijima turned slightly and pushed open his door with his back. Just like before, he crouched down near Hinata’s bed (tipping Hinata down carefully), pulling back the covers somehow and placing him on the bed. He stood at the foot of the bed stiffly while Hinata adjusted himself, disappointed to be put down but happy to have a second to get himself back to normal.

  “Story time?” Hinata said, pulling the covers up to his chin.

  “Oh,” he said, dropping to the floor, “I’ll look one up.”

  "Aw, I want another one of your original stories though!"

  Ushijima frowned, and continued tapping on his phone. " No. I can only come up with one original story per month."

  Hinata laughed, and didn't bother to muffle it.

  "Hey," Ushijima said, frown deepening, "what's your wifi password?"

  "Oh, um, it's just a bunch numbers and letters, and um, it's on the internet box."

  "Why haven't you set up your password?"

  Hinata shrugged. "My mom isn't the type of mom to set it up."

  "You could do it yourself."

  He looked away. " I'm also...not the type of mom to set it up."

  Ushijima smiled to himself. "Maybe Natsu will do it for you."

  "Gah! No! Well...actually that sounds like her."

  Ushijima made a noise, maybe a laugh? Then, he abruptly stood up. "I guess I can't tell you a story tonight. I will next time."

  "Hey, whaaa, wait! Don't just leave! It's still just 8:30!"

  He paused, and checked his watch. “8:38. What do you want me to do then?"

  "Um...well...hey! Let me stay up a little bit longer! We could hang out in here! And just...," Hinata searched for something in his room Ushijima would like, but he came up blank," um, talk? About school, or our friends, or...or volleyball!"

  He seemed taken aback. "No. It's time for bed."

  Hinata huffed, and sat up. “I knew you'd say that. Well, you can leave if you want to, but I'm not gonna go to sleep!”

  He pressed his lips together. Once again, Ushijima placed both hands on Hinata's shoulders and pushed back onto his pillows, but this time, he hovered over Hinata and tucked him in, swiftly, as if he had a time limit.

 _Such a weird guy_ , Hinata mused.

  He sprang back up. Truthfully, he felt a little bad undoing Ushijima's work, but for some reason the feeling was overwhelmed by something else. What was it? It kinda felt like...like he was stalling? Yes. He was stalling.

_If he leaves now, then when will I see him again?_

  Ushijima stared him down, like he was assessing him. Then, very slowly, while still maintaining eye contact, he sat on the edge of the bed. Hinata felt like a deer caught in headlights. 

   “ Uhm, what are you,-”

  Ushijima reached out his hand; Hinata held his breath. For five whole seconds, while Ushijima's hand seemed to move at the speed of not-at-all, and Hinata didn't inhale at all. Finally, the tips of Ushijima's fingers landed gently on the side of Hinata's neck. He jumped a mile out of his skin.

   “ What the-,”

  The calloused finger tips of Ushijima's hand suddenly jerked along the skin of Hinata's neck and Hinata gasped loudly. Oh! He was being tickled! He reflexively brought his head to his shoulder, trying to trap Ushijima's fingers, but Ushijima simply switched sides. 

   “ Sto-stop that,” Hinata wailed, falling back onto his bed. 

  Ushijima didn't stop. He hovered over Hinata and continued to tickle the side of his neck, carefully but quickly switching sides so Hinata couldn't stop him. Despite his protests, he was having a good time. At least, he was, until it occurred to Hinata that wriggling and gasping so much probably made him look childish. 

  In a serious attempt to get away, he tried rolling away from Ushijima. Unfortunately, Ushijima grabbed his shoulder and pinned him to the bed. 

   “ Uhmmph,” Hinata wheezed, the sudden weight startling him.

  Ushijima kept his hand there but kept going, only now he was tickling the left side of Hinata's stomach. 

   “ No, no, whaaahaah,” Hinata wailed.

  Ushijima was tickling harder now, probably to still be felt over the fabric of his t-shirt, but it wasn't necessary. Unfortunately for Hinata, the material was flimsy. He really,  _ really _ , needed Ushijima to stop. But he didn't want him to.

  Switching tactics, Hinata snatched Ushijima's wrist. 

   “ Ha!” he grinned, but only for a second before Ushijima effortlessly yanked himself out of his grasp and went right on tickling. Hinata gave it a few more weak tries before accepting that it was no use.

   “ Okay, okay,” he wailed through his laughter, “no, more! I surrender! I'm tired for bed now! You can-you leave!” he said, gasping. 

  Ushijima stopped immediately, like those were the magic words. Hinata waited for Ushijima to slide off the bed and leave him, but he didn't. He didn't move. Ushijima was still in his position, hovering over Hinata with one hand pressing down on his shoulder. Hinata was suddenly aware of how loud his heart beat was. Why wasn't he moving? Did he want revenge on Hinata after all, and just choose cruel feelings-torture to do it? Time seemed to slow down, then come to a complete stop all together. How long had he been staring at Ushijima? Or rather, how long had Ushijima been staring at him? He found himself thinking about how pretty Ushijima's eyes were again...especially up close...no. No! It was still weird that they were frozen in that position!

  He opened his mouth to say something, anything, and then time whipped forward. Ushijima leaned down; Hinata's eyes widened in confusion, and then there was a gentle pressure on his lips. For a second Hinata wasn't sure what was happening. And then, he got it. But it still didn't make any sense. Ushijima was kissing him. 

_   Ushijima was kissing him?  _

  Ushijima was kissing him, and it felt amazing. His lips were surprisingly soft and warm; it made Hinata's mouth feel a little ticklish, but in a nice way. He tried to think of something, what to do, what was happening, how to make time freeze forever, but he couldn't. He couldn’t hold on to any thoughts. His whole body was tingling with ‘spiked-volleyball’ adrenaline, except it filled every ounce of him and it was 10 times as intense.  _ Never end, never end, never end,  _ he thought in his confused, but supper happy state.

  Then, for no reason at all, time went completely back to normal. Ushijima pulled away suddenly. He gazed at Hinata intensely for a few seconds, his narrowed, calculating olive green eyes meet Hinata's wide, flustered, honey brown ones. His face was red; he ran the hand that was just on Hinata's shoulder a second ago through his hair. Again, Hinata opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Ushijima pushed himself off the bed and stood up straight, stiffly, as if he were a volleyball robot.

  “ Good night,” he said coldly, not making eye contact. 

  Good night? What?

  “ Um, g-good night?” 

  He nodded, again, stiffly, then turned and walked away. The door was gently closed behind him. 

  Hinata blinked. He numbly reached over to his night stand and turned the lamp off. Flopping back onto his bed, he laid very still. Again, he was looking back up at the ceiling, but he wasn't actually seeing it. He was seeing Ushijima face, or rather, his green eyes that looked even greener when his face was red. 

_   What the hell just happened?  _

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!!! So for those of you who haven't taken their SATs yet, I'd just like to say that Khan Academy has a free SAT prep course where the wonderful Professor Sal will show you exactly how he got the answers to real SAT questions! It's also worth mentioning that if you have ADHD you can request extra time but that request needs to be made months before the deadline to apply for the actual test is, so if it's something you need, I'd take a look at it sooner rather than later.  
>  I plan to post the final chapter on 12/18/17, so I hope to see you then!~


	4. Chapter Four

  Hinata held his mother's book of contacts in his hand, and opened to the ‘U’ section. He’d been staring at Ushijima’s number for an embarrassing amount of time, with his phone gripped tightly in his other hand. Squeezing his eyes shut for a good solid ten seconds, he took a deep breath and snapped them back opened them. Still no bravery.

  He sighed and opened the messaging app on his phone. He scrolled through his long list of friends, and eventually settled on Yachi, who gave very good advice (and was also the most likely of his friends to be awake at 6:30 in the morning).

****From Hinata:** **

**** _how do you force your body to move when there’s no volleyball?_

He saved Ushijima's number as 'Japan' and put the contact book away while he waited for her response. True to form, she responded within a few seconds.

****From Yachi:** **

_What do you mean? Also, what are you doing up at 6:30, Hinata-san?_

****From Hinata:** **

_couldn't sleep last night!!! when I'm on the court, I just move. I don't think about it, I'm not nervous my body just moves!!! how do I do that when it's not volleyball?_

****From Yachi:** **

_Oh, I understand! I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer that though, I'm not so good at getting past my anxiety and doing things?_

****From Hinata:** **

_but you confessed to Kiyoko didn't you???_

****To Hinata:** **

_Well yes, but I didn't do it in person. I wrote her a letter. Are you trying to tell someone how you feel? Maybe you could do something like that?_

****From Hinata:** **

  s _orta_ . a _nd im trying!!! but its not a letter, its a text, bc I want to see him in person, so im asking him out, or trying too?_

****To Hi**** **nata:**

_Hmm. I'm still not sure how helpful I can be, but whenever I'm unsure of what to do, I take a deep breath, and jot down an outline for how I want things to go! First, you set your end goal. What do you want to get out of this? Next, you break that goal into small, simple steps. It helps to write down in detail how your going to execute those steps. I find that with each little step I tick off, I feel motivated to keep going, because I already made progress! I hope any of that was helpful! Good luck! Keep me updated!!!_

****From Hinata:** **

_ok!!! i'll try that! thank you!!!_

  Even if it still felt a little like stalling, Hinata optimistically went back to his room and sat at his underused desk. Pulling out a pad of yellow paper and a pen, he got to work.

  Goal: Get Ushijima to date me!!!

  He stared down at it and frowned. That wasn't what he meant to write. He meant to write something like 'find out how Japan feels about me,' but his hand had a mind of it's own. Hinata went to cross it out but he hesitated. Was there a reason why that couldn't be the goal?

 _Maybe it's not all that realistic...but neither is Ushijima being my babysitter in the first place, so I'm keeping it_ , Hinata thought to himself.

  Step 1: write down Ushijima’s number.

  He put a little check by that.

  Step 2: text Ushijima to go to the park. Be causal!

  Step 3: pick outfit

  Step 4: Get to the park

  Step 5: Ask why Ushijima kissed him and left???

  Hinata bite his lip at the last part. There wasn't a causal way to ask that. He couldn't think of any way, even a non-nonchalant way to ask, because, truthfully he was scared of Ushijima saying that Hinata misunderstood or that he was just curious. Maybe bedtime kisses were a weird regional thing in Ushijima's district? It seemed like someone would have _mentioned_ that at some point, but he figured that people mentioned a lot of things to him, and he usually didn't remember them. He crossed that part out.

  Step 5: Have a nice day in the park with Ushijima.

  He sighed. That still felt off, but at the rate he was going, he was going to lose the sunlight.

  Step one was already done, so next was step two. He looked at step two, notepad and phone in hand. He clicked on Ushijima’s number and stared at the blinking cursor. He placed the notepad down.

****To Ushijima:** **

**** _hi!!!_

  Nope, three explanation marks wasn't casual.

****To Ushijima:** **

   _hey! do you want to go on a_

  He deleted that one very quickly.

****To Ushijima:** **

**_hey! wanna go to park S today?_ **

  He read the message over. It sounded casual, and no dumb typos. His thumb hovered over the send button. Would Ushijima know it was him? What if he just deleted the message and blocked him because he didn't recognize the sender? He quickly erased that message too.

  Looking down at his blank message, he watched the cursor blink. His heart beat seemed just as fast. Hinata took one last deep breath before squeezing his eyes shut and typing. Just like when he used to spike with his shut. That worked okay for a little while, didn't it? He didn't open his eyes before slamming his thumb down on the send button, he had to do it before he lost his nerve. After a few seconds, he slowly opened his eyes.

****To Ushijima:** **

**_hey! ItsHinata! Do you want to go to th park_ _S today?_**

  He cringed at the typos. Actually, the whole message looked dumb; why did he think eyes screwed shut would be a good idea again?

  Oh well. At least it sounded nonchalant. He sighed and slid off his bed to complete step 3. Rummaging through his dresser drawers, he managed to find a pair of plain, clean jeans; he tossed them on his bed. Next, he dug through his closet in search of a shirt. He pulled down a light blue t-shirt, along with a green tie dye shirt and the formal navy blue button down shirt his mom made him wear around relatives. He took selfies of him wearing all of them and sent them all to Kenma, who had surprisingly good fashion sense despite not having an interest in it himself. Also, he figured Kenma would also be up, not because he was a morning person, but he was a ‘stay up until 6:30 in the morning playing video games’ kind of person.

  He got a response back quickly.

****From Kenma:** **

_Why did you send me these?_

****To Kenma:** **

_bc I need help choosing one for a maybe date!_

****From Kenma:** **

  _A maybe date?_

****From Kenma:** **

_Go with the light blue one. It contrasts with your hair color._

****To Kenma:** **

_kk! thanks!!!_

****To Kenma:** **

_well. I don't know how he feels, but I'm going to try to find out, at the park today!!!_

  He dropped his phone on his bed and hung the other two shirts back up. His phone buzzed. Twice.

  From Kenma:

_Good luck._

****From Ushijima:** **

_Yes. What time?_

  His mouth popped open. He texted back! Ushijima texted him back!

  He decided to respond with his eyes open this time. His fingers were just a jittery as his heart but he managed to slowly type out a typo free yet calm sounding message.

****To Ushijima:** **

**_at 9? near the ice cream stand? :)_ **

****From Ushijima:** **

_Okay. See you then._

Hinata’s eyes widened and he let out a out a mix between a ‘gwahh’ and a ‘whoop’! He said yes! For a second he considered sending another text back, but decided to play it cool instead and went to take a shower. He used his bubble gum scented shampoo for good measure and the soap that smelled like candy. Next he toweled his hair dry and then fluffed it back up with leave in conditioner. He quickly got dressed and went back to his room to check the time. 6:42.

  Oh. Turns out it doesn't take 3 hours to get ready. Hinata pouted and flopped back onto his bed. He decided pass time with volleyball match videos on YouTube. It was a long three hours.

  When it was finally time, Hinata got to the park an hour early, and it was probably the only non-volleyball thing he'd ever been early to. He was so sure getting there a whole hour early would guarantee him that he was there first, making him look cool and collected, which is why he almost had a stroke when he saw Ushijima standing at the ice cream stand. His back was to him, at least. Hinata froze for a second, then quickly grabbed fistfuls of his hair to fluff it up, and smoothed down his shirt. He took a deep breath. And then three more.

  Hinata walked up and bounced onto his toes to tap Ushijima on the shoulder. He turned around suddenly.

  Hinata’s heart stopped. He looked a little different than he did yesterday, his hair looked darker and a little shinier, which made his eyes look glow-y. He was dressed cool too, in a clingy forest green t-shirt and casual cargo pants that showed off his muscular calves. Hinata went red and dropped his eyes to the ground. Stunned, he wondered if he also asked a friend how to dress, and if so did that make it a date?

   “ Hinata Shoyo. Hello,” Ushijima said, pulling Hinata out of his thoughts.

   “ Japan Wakatoshi ! Hi!” he repeated back, then quickly wished he hadn't. “You’re really early! Wait, it is nine right?” Hinata said, twisting around to look at the fancy black clock tower at the center of the park.

   “ I’m pretty sure it’s nine. Actually, I'm not great at telling time on those kinds of clocks.”

  He clamped his mouth shut suddenly. Why did he tell Ushijima that?

  Ushijima offered him a small smile. “It is nine. I wanted to be on time. You're here early as well.”

   “ Oh. Well, yeah, I guess I am.”

  Ushijima nodded once. “Do you want ice cream?”

   “ Oh yeah!” he said excitedly, turning his attention to the cute little ice cream cart and the woman behind with shiny black hair. She smiled at them shyly.

  There wasn't a ton of flavors or toppings, but Hinata still couldn't choose. All four flavors looked really good, and he didn't discriminate when it came to ice cream. Or food of any kind.

   “ Gah, sorry, everything just looks good…,”

   “ It's fine . Make sure you get what you want.”

   “ Mmmph,” he mumbled, blushing and turning back to the glass ice cream cases. Ushijima was so nice, it just took a while to notice it. Were there signs before? “I guess I’ll have...strawberry with sprinkles?”

   “ Two scoops or one?” the woman asked quietly.

   “ T-,” he glanced at Ushijima nervously, “um, one please.”

  She nodded and started scooping out the ice cream. “And for you?”

   “ Just one scoop of chocolate please.”

   “ That will be 848 yen,” the woman said when they both got their ice cream.

  Hinata carefully held his ice cream cone out in front of him and started to fish through his pockets but Ushijima shook his head.

   “ I'll pay ,” he said, swiftly pulling out his wallet from one of his many pockets.

   “ Oh, it's okay, I brought money!”

  He shook his head again. “I want to.”

 _I wish I could spike as fast as my heart is beating_ , Hinata thought, withdrawing his hand from his pocket.

   “ O-okay. Thanks.” he mumbled.

  He nodded and payed.

   “ Do you want to go sit over there?” he said, sliding his wallet back into his pocket and pointing to a wooden bench a little ways down the park’s bike trail.

   “ Okay !”

  Ushijima immediately strode off towards the bench. Hinata paused for a second. He could’ve sworn that the ice cream lady gave him a quick thumbs up before turning to her new customer. Like, a good luck charm? Hinata blinked and then rushed to catch up with him. Since he got there first, Ushijima sat down, and Hinata unthinkingly sat down next to him. _Gahh, that's too close!_ He didn't even notice how close he was to Ushijima until a second too late. Ushijima didn't say anything.

  Neither of them did, for at least five awkward minutes while they ate. The silence felt thicker than the ice cream to Hinata.

   “ Uhhm, thanks for setting up the wifi password,” he said, suddenly recalling the sticky note he found on the internet box earlier that morning. It read: password: ace10 .

   “ It was no problem. You should have done it years ago.”

  Hinata huffed and went back to eating his ice cream. They fell back into that awkward silence that made strawberry ice cream taste slightly more bitter than it usually did. He finished eating quicker than Ushijima did, so he did his best to wait patiently for him to finish, keeping his eyes straight forward and swinging his legs.

  Apparently he only managed to do the last thing.

   “ You keep staring at me. Again.”

  Hinata jumped. “No! I wasn't.

   “ You were.”

   “ You didn't even look up! How would you know?” he said.

   “ We’ve been over this before. I can feel it.”

   “ Well then, your feeling was wrong!” Hinata said loudly, scaring away some near by sparrows.

  Ushijima jaw tightened suddenly and Hinata swallowed. He never thought someone holding one third of an ice cream cone could look so intimidating. He was wrong. Staring at him in shock, Hinata wondered what caused the sudden gloomy atmosphere as Ushijima finished his last few bites of ice cream and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Maybe he hated being wrong?

   “ Uhm, I was just kidding! You weren't wrong...it's just weird to see someone so scary eat chocolate ice cream, so I was staring, sorry, that's all...ahaha.”

  His jaw didn't budge.

   “ Uhh, are you,” he went to poke Ushijima's arm but froze for a second when he saw Ushijima’s closed fist. His hand was already in the air though, so he lightly tapped the edge of his shirt sleeve. “...okay?”

   “ I’m fine. Thank you for asking me to be here. I have something that I want to say, and I wasn't sure if I would get the opportunity.” he said stiffly.

  Hinata’s face heated up instantly. Were they really thinking the same thing?

   “ Re-really? I have something to tell you too!”

  He gave Hinata a weird look but didn't say anything.

  “Let's say our things at the same time!” Hinata said, bouncing on his seat.

  Ushijima shifted in his spot. “Okay, then.”

   “ Let's do it on three!” he said, so quickly that the words blended together.

   “ Okay, then . ”

   “ One!”

  The nervousness and the excitement was pumping through him. He felt braver than normal with the assumption in his head that Ushijima was going to say something similar, but at least 20% uncertain as to what was going to happen next. It felt like the first few seconds before he’d do a freak quick.

   “ Two!”

  He bounced out of his seat a tiny bit more when he said it; Ushijima was peering at him from out the corners of his eyes. It was an intense look, it made Hinata's heart beat faster. Any harder and Ushijima would be able to hear it, if he couldn't already by then.

   “ Three!”

♥  ♥  ♥

   “ I’m sorry about last night, it won't ever happen again.” he said, at the very same time that Hinata said “ This is a date, right?”.

  Hinata blinked. What? What just happened? The giddy smile slipped off Hinata’s face.

   “ Wait, what? Sorry?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t worry, I didn’t mean this as a date. I only wanted to apologize. Last night I thought,” he dropped his gaze, “never mind. Please except my apology.”

  Hinata was completely still. What was Ushijima talking about?

   “ You don't have to worry about it happening again.” he said, standing up abruptly.

   “ Wha-what a-,”

“ I’ve said what I came to say. I’ll leave now.”

  Hinata was still frozen as Ushijima turned his face away and took a few steps back. When he turned around completely and started to walk back to the parking lot, Hinata sprang back to life. He jumped off the bench and bolted up to Ushijima.

   “ Hey!” he yelled, “ Wait!”

  He turned around and arched an eyebrow. “Yes?”

   “ What is the matter with you?” he called out while running up to him.

  He paused. “Was it not enough to apologize?”

   “ No! Why are you apologizing?!”

  He furrowed his brow. “ When you regret doing something, you apologize as a way to say that you won't do it again.”

  Hinata was overwhelmed suddenly with a wave of ‘thisisnotadateohmygodthisisnotadate,’. “Regret...won't do it again…,” he mumbled. He felt his heart sink into his shoes.

   “ Oh. Okay then. Bye, I guess.”

  Ushijima nodded, and turned back to the parking lot a few miles off. He only got a few steps before Hinata fully went over what he said. Within seconds his blood was boiling. It's not like Hinata made him kiss him! And it's not like he got yelled at after it happened! So why the hell did he regret it?

  Running back up to Ushijima, he yelled “Why did you do it in the first place then?”, causing two passer-bys to turn their heads.

  Hinata bit his lip and Ushijima’s gaze fell. “Why is not important. I…” he said distractedly, digging through his pant pocket for a small silver key, “...it was a misunderstanding. I'm sorry. I'm going home now.” He said, flashing the key at him like some kind of explanation.

  Hinata got an idea. It wasn't a good idea, but that never stopped Hinata before. “ No, you’re not!” Hinata shouted, suddenly leaping up and snatching the key.

  Ushijima froze, then his jaw tightened. “Hinata, give me back my bike key.”

   “ No. Don’t wanna.”

  He narrowed his eyes and then moved to pry the key out of Hinata’s hand.

   “ Nooo! Just-,” Hinata wailed, clutching the key tightly, “ explain yourself and I’ll give it back!”

  Ushijima responded by digging at Hinata’s hands even harder. He was seconds away from overpowering him, so Hinata yanked himself out of Ushijima’s grasp with all the strength he had and he stumbled backwards. Not even pausing, he sprinted away. The key clutched tight in his fist, he ran like he was racing Kageyama, which is to say, he went as fast a he possibly could. Unfortunately, Ushijima took off after him only seconds later. Heavy foot steps thundered right behind him, but Hinata wasn't about to let Ushijima escape without his answers, so he shifted into freak quick mode, and managed to put a few more feet of distance between them. Still, Ushijima chased after him, all the way to the edge of the park with no sidewalk, just old, towering trees. Suddenly, the footsteps behind him started syncing up with his. Hinata was already breathing hard but he strained and willed his aching legs to keep going. _Keep going, keep going, keep going_ , he thought, but he was quickly running out of places to run as the edge of the pond was fast approaching. Did Hinata know how to swim? He was pretty sure he did, but he couldn't remember-something hard yanked him from behind, and he fell backwards.

   “ Aarrgh,” he yelled, hitting the ground with a _thud_ .

  His back crashed against something hard. Thinking it was a tree, he twisted around. “Whhhaa!”

  An equally surprised Ushijima let go of a fistful of Hinata’s shirt.

   “ Did you yank my shirt down? That’s-that’s cheating!”

   “ I didn't mean to pull you down. Sorry.”

  Hinata glared for a seconded before noticing the genuinely sorry look on his face, then just as quickly becoming aware of just how close they were sitting. It was Ushijima that had landed with his back against a large sycamore tree, which meant that Hinata was propped up against Ushijima’s chest, with one of his legs on either side of him.

   “ Uhm...okay! Can we stop sitting like this now?” he said, in a much more high-pitched voice than originally planned.

  There was a beat of silence. “Give me my key first.”

   “ No!” he yelled.

  He tried to jump up again but this time strong arms wrapped around his torso. Ushijima immediately started prying at Hinata’s clenched fist with his left hand while managing to keep a squirming Hinata restrained with his right. Although Ushijima was strong, Hinata’s frustration and curiosity gave his grip extra strength; neither of them got very far in achieving their tasks.

   “ It’s my key. Return it now.” Ushijima grunted eventually.

   “ I-I will! Just-you kissed me then left then apologized and this is not date but we are sitting really, really close and touching a lot for it not being a date so just explain that and you can have it back!” he yelled in between gasps, the words running together.

  Ushijima paused. “We are fighting over my key. That’s not…,”

   “ And the other stuff? What about that?”

  Ushijima gave him a hard look that annoyed the butterflies in Hinata’s stomach, but otherwise he said nothing.

   “ I’ll swallow the key,” Hinata said, looking up at him defiantly.

  He cringed. “Please don’t.”

   “ Then…?”

   “ Okay. I... it was...because I wanted to. I did it because I wanted to.”

  Hinata froze. That was what he wanted to hear but hearing it out loud was different than expecting it. It felt like a volleyball to the face, except in a good way.

   “ And...the other stuff? Why’d you apologize?”

  He frowned. “ Because I made you uncomfortable? I...it wasn't my intent. I thought we were thinking the same thoughts; I was mistaken. It seems I misread your actions.”

  Hinata dropped his gazed. “Hah. Uhhm. What....made you think that?” He said, picking at some grass.

  Ushijima looked at him incredulously. “ You...afterwards your face was so red. You looked mortified.”

  It took Hinata a second to register what he just said. And then he did. And then he started yelling. “ What? Wait, what? That was my first kiss, of course-of course my face was red! I was just shocked, that didn't mean I didn't like it, of course I-,” Hinata stopped short. “You didn't have to freak out like that and leave, you could have just _asked_ me, y'know”

   “ You...didn't hate it?” he asked slowly.

   “ No. I hated...you leaving and apologizing and-and the idea that you might not come back or never talk to me again but I didn't hate the k-that.” Neither of them said anything for a second. “You could...even do it again?” he said, his heartbeat speeding up with each word.

  Ushijima’s eyes widened. He didn't say or do anything moment-then two-then three, instead he just looked at Hinata. Then, slowly, almost unsurely, Ushijima lifted his hand up to tilt Hinata’s face up. He felt like all the oxygen was quickly being drained out of him, and being replaced with even _more_ butterflies. _So. Many. Butterflies._ Their wings went beat beat beat as the seconds ticked by and Hinata tried to be a patient person. Or a calm person.

  Ushijima leaned over him and he kissed him.

  Oh. It felt different this time, since he was anticipating it. Ushijima’s lips were slightly chapped but tingly and warm, reminding Hinata of what it was like to play volleyball outside in the sunshine. The jittery, sparky feeling in Hinata’s lips was extending throughout his whole body as Ushijima's mouth moved with his, and suddenly Hinata was hyper aware of his loud heartbeat, and their awkwardly close sitting position, and Ushijima's hand around his waist and his other hand cupped under his chin.

   “ Pwah,” Hinata gasped, pulling himself away from Ushijima and breathing hard.

  He rose an eyebrow. “Did I-,”

   “ No! It wasn't-um, thank you. For that. It's just-can we notsitlikethisanymore?”

  He blinked, then gave Hinata a small smile. “ Oh. Right. Sure.”

  Hinata awkwardly scrambled over Ushijima’s left thigh, but somehow that was even more embarrassing than how they’d been sitting; with Hinata trying extra hard not to touch Ushijima anymore than necessary but failing completely.

   “ H-here. Here’s your key back,” he said, his face bright red when he got situated.

  Ushijima took the key, his fingers brushing against Hinata’s palm. His face just kept on burning.

   “ You can go home if you want,” he forced himself to say.

   “ Go home?”

   “ Yeah...since you explained and stuff…,”

   “ I see. I...don't know much about the technicalities of dating. Still, is it not rude to leave 15 minutes into a date?”

   “Gwah? D-date?”

   “ Yes. That's what this was suppose to be, so. Let's go.”

   “ Well, there was a misunderstanding so I dunno about sup-go? Go where?” Hinata said as Ushijima stood up.

  He held out his hand for Hinata. Hinata hesitantly put his hand out and was pulled up to his feet. “For a walk,” Ushijima said, jerking his head towards the path through the park that they had abandoned.

  Hinata was suddenly very sure that he wouldn't make it through the rest of the date without passing out.

 _Worth it,_ he thought to himself as they headed towards the path again and Hinata tried not to be too conscious of the fact that Ushijima still hadn't dropped his hand.

♥  ♥  ♥

  It was the best date that anyone had ever had ever. Ever! They spent most of it walking, hand in hand, while Hinata told Ushijima all about the Little Giant and Karasuno and doing freak quicks with his eyes open and every other volleyball related thing he could think of. They had to take a break for lunch at a sushi stand but then went right on back to walking around. Hinata found that Ushijima was surprising talkative, at least compared to normal, when he asked about Ushijima's team (and oddly enough, about the Grand King? Hinata never knew he was suppose to go to Shiratorizawa). Then at dusk, the two of them, both thoroughly exhausted, sat in the grass and watched the setting sun reflect off the pond. Well, that was the plan anyways, but Hinata was fixated on the small bouquet of plum blossoms tied up with purple ribbon that Ushijima had insisted on buying him “because it's Equinox Day”. Hinata had completely forgotten about Equinox Day, (a.k.a, the reason they were off from school on a Monday), but now it was one of his favorite holidays. The flowers were so soft.

  He quickly tried to think of something else before his face got too red and got stuck that way. (If eyes could get stuck in weird positions, then faces could get stuck in weird colors too, right?).

   “ Hey!” he said suddenly.

   “ Yes?”

   “ You never answered my question by the way! I'm still waiting!” Hinata exclaimed, sticking his tongue out.

   “ I'm pretty sure I did. That's why we're on a date right now.”

   “ No!” Hinata said, blushing when Ushijima said 'date' in his husky voice. “I meant my question from yesterday! I asked, 'why are you here?' and you never told me!”

   “ Oh.” He was quiet for a long time after that, but Hinata waited for his answer patiently. Semi-patiently. Not patiently at all, actually. Hinata bobbed up and down and stared at him expectantly while Ushijima thought about his answer, while tapping him on his hand every few seconds. Finally, Ushijima suddenly caught Hinata's hand in his and held it still. Then, he took a deep breath.

   “ When Shiratorizawa faced Karasuno, I thought that the uncertain feelings I had regarding you would be resolved. I got my chance to play against you. We lost. That should have been the end of my feelings. But nothing felt resolved. Whatever it was that I wanted from you, I still wanted. At first, I thought things felt unfinished because we lost. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. But I thought less about the game and more about...you. You're unpredictable. Un-calculating. Loud. Un-reasonably optimistic. Overly energetic,” Hinata, feeling hurt, started to protest but Ushijima quickly shook his head and kept going. “Those qualities...they used to annoy me the most. After the match, I thought I kept thinking of you because I was annoyed by you. But I started looking for those qualities in the people around me, so I realized that that wasn't it. I thought maybe I admired you, but that didn't feel correct either. So, when I was offered the job, I thought that maybe if I was around you, I could figure out what it was I wanted from you.”

  Hinata felt like he had the air knock out of him. He wanted to do a lot of things, all at once. Cry. Hug him. Kiss him. _A lot._ But Ushijima was waiting for him to say something, so he said,

   “ Did you figure it out then?”

  Ushijima smiled a relieved smile at him. “I did. A lot faster than you did, too.”

   “ Hey!” Hinata yelled, but he was laughing. “It's not my fault my head's too filled with volleyball!”

   “ No, it's not. It's one of the things I like about you.”

  Hinata stopped laughing. It was unfair of him to say things like that, with no warning. But he wanted to hear more things that meant Ushijima liked him; he just couldn't help it.

   “ So. Uhm. What was it that you wanted? Exactly?”

  The dwindling light from the setting sun made it harder to see, but it looked like Ushijima's face was slightly red. He took a long time to answer, but Hinata really did wait patiently that time. After a while he said,

   “ You should use my proper name from now on.”

   “ You don't like it when I call you Japan?” Hinata said, trying to not sound hurt.

  Ushijima shook his head. “That's not what I meant. Nicknames are fine. But you never use my first name.”

   “ You want me to call you Wakatoshi?”

  He didn't look at Hinata. “People in relationships use each other's first names,” he said, his jaw tight.

  Hinata's mouth fell open. Did he just hear that? For real? He let something out like a squeak; Ushijima turned to say something, eyes wide, but Hinata cut him off.

   “ Okay! Okay, I can do that, Wakatoshi!” It felt strange to say that, but also nice. “But you have to call me Shoyo too! Not Hinata-Shoyo or Hinata like you usually do!”

  Ushijima nodded, and smiled. Not a small smile, but the broad smile he'd only seen once before. His heart skipped a beat. He could watch Ushijima smile like that forever.

  They said nothing more after that. Instead, they went back to watching the sun go down. Hinata actually did watch this time, because it felt perfect for how he was feeling. It was pretty, and changing. The day was becoming the night, just like how Hinata's life was starting to shift too. There was nothing to be scared about though, and everything to be excited about, because as the sun went down, Ushijima's warm, rough hand stayed placed firmly on Hinata's, and soon the stars were going to come out.

  A few minutes after the sun vanished completely, Ushijima's voice pulled Hinata out of his thoughts. “We should head home, before it's too dark.”

   “ Aww,” Hinata said, pouting, “I don't wanna go.” He had a feeling Ushijima would scold him about safety or his parents worrying though, so he quickly added, “will you walk me to my bike?”

   “ Yes.”

   “ And give me lots of goodnight kisses?” Hinata said, feeling bold.

  Even in the dim light, Ushijima's face looked red. “Hmmph.”

♥  ♥  ♥

  When he got home that night, he could hardly get through the barrage of motherly “what are you doing back so late?” questions. Even Natsu was suspicious, (the flowers didn't help), but eventually he managed to make it safely back to his room. He immediately grabbed his phone; he already had a text from Kenma.

****From Kenma:** **

**** _How did the confession go?_

****To Kenma:** **

_AHHH KENMA!!! IT WENT SO AWESOME!!!HE'S MY BOYFRIEND NOW!!! <3 <3 <3 :D :D :')_

****From Kenma:** **

_I'm glad it went well._

 

****To Kenma:** **

 

_thanks! hey, I need to ask you something very important!!!_

****From Kenma:** **

**** _Yes?_

****To Kenma:** **

_how does Ushijima Shoyo sound? pretty cool, right???_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS!!! I GOT AN 1220 ON MY SAT'S!!! EVEN STUPID PEOPLE CAN HAVE DREAMS!!!  
> Anyways, that's it for this fic! If you wanna request something else, my tumblr inbox (cosmic-writer) is always open! Thank you so so so much everyone that commented and gave kudos, y'all are the reason I continue to write fic! Happy holidays everyone!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!!! Thank you so much for reading!!! I plan to update this on 11/20/17, I hope to see you then!!!


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